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DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 



"Moderation is the silken string running 
through the pearl chain of all virtues." 



DINING AND ITS 
AMENITIES 



BY A LOVER OF 
GOOD CHEER 



He that is of a merry heart hath 
a continual feast" 



'IV'Oh 



NEW YORK 

REBMAN COMPANY 
1123 BROADWAY 



sir. 



s^ 



LiBBARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

MAR 6 190f 

._ Copyright Entry 
CLASS ^ XXc, No. 

COPY B, 



0*" 



Copyright, 1907, 

By REBMAN COMPANY 

New York 



THE DEIPNOPHILIC BRETHREN 

WHO ALL HAVE CONTRIBUTED SO MUCH INTERESTING AND 

EDIFYING LORE, DURING MANY YEARS OF THE PLEAS- 

ANTEST REUNIONS AT THE FESTAL BOARD, 

THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED WITH THE 

DEEPEST FRATERNAL AFFECTION 



PREFACE 

The papers embodied in this work were originally- 
read before an association of professional men who 
met monthly for diversion and refection, during 
which were discussed many questions relating to 
letters, science and art, besides those pertaining 
to alimentation. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I Preliminary parle. ..... 1 

II The role of the senses in the pleasure op 

EATING ....... 18 

III The refectory and its appurtenances . . 34 

IV Fragments on the evolution of cookery and 

GASTRONOMY ...... 46 

V Ancient and modern banqueting . . .66 

VI A CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER . . . .79 

VII Beverages . . . . . . .95 

VIII Fermented liquors . . . . .112 

IX Distilled liquors ...... 127 

X Tea infusion ....... 141 

XI Coffee infusion ...... 156 

XII Chocolate and other broths. . . . 171 

XIII The seasoning of aliments .... 181 

XIV Salty and fatty condiments .... 196 
XV Of cheese ....... 210 

XVI Of sour condiments ..... 230 

XVII Of pungent and aromatic condiments . . 241 

XVIII Of sweet condiments ..... 264 

XIX Metaphoric uses of sweetness . . . 283 

XX Slang speech ...... 302 

XXI The pleasure of eating and the pleasures 

OF THE TABLE ...... 327 

vii 



VlU CONTENTS 

DEIPNOPHILIC MISCELLANIES 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I The dessert ....... 343 

II Anniversary feasts ...... 348 

III Dining clubs ....... 355 

IV Table jests 369 

V Table superstitions ..... 387 

VI Fasting and frugality; luxury and excess . 395 

VII Gluttony ........ 406 

VIII Trencher-friends . . . . . .419 

IX Relations of physical and mental digestion . 428 

X Food allowance to warriors .... 432 

XI Tobacco smoking . . . . . .441 



DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 



PRELIMINARY PARLE 

" Je prends mon bien partout ou je le trouve." 

The chief subject of these discourses is alimenta- 
tion of body and mind in its relations to the in- 
dividual, the family, the community, and the nation. 
The individual's inquiries into the nature of alimen- 
tary substances involve the acquirement of a fair 
knowledge of household science, of the nutritive value 
of food-stuffs and of the season when they are at 
their best, besides some notions as to their prepara- 
tion and service. His ability to enforce salutary 
rules of hygiene and sanitation, is essential to the 
well-being of his family and of himself. The health 
and happiness of families and communities necessarily 
depend upon the qualities of the chiefs, and the 
nation that is made up of morally and physically 
vigorous, well-fed, thrifty communities is likely to 
enjoy long the blessings of peace and plenty. Im- 
bued with these ideas, several thinkers expressed, in 
varying verbiage, the substance of the following 
aphorism: "The destiny of nations depends upon 

l 



2 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

the character of their diet." A moralist once said, 
substantially, that to dine is the end of human actions : 
it is to dine that men labor; it is that he too may 
dine that the cook prepares our food; it is to obtain 
the aliments needed to sustain life that the sailor 
exposes himself to storms, that the soldier braves 
death, that the courtier wields the censor, and the 
ascetic preaches abstinence. Chiefs of families can 
have no better guidance, in their preliminary con- 
sideration of the physical, moral, and intellectual 
effects of rational alimentation, than that afforded by 
the precious aphorisms of Anselme Brillat-Savarin, 
the illustrious author of "The Physiology of Taste," 
composed to serve as prolegomena to his admirable 
work. They are here reproduced by way of intro- 
duction to these sketches; each aphorism appearing 
in its original form, followed by a translation and by 
annotations designed to amplify what the Master has 
expounded so tersely. 



"L'univers n'est rien que par la vie, et tout ce qui vit se nourrit." 
The universe is naught but by life, and all that lives is nourished. 

Even a casual glance at this aphorism suggests the 
breadth of views of its sapient author who showed 
what a clear conception he had of the Creator's grand 
design of the three kingdoms of nature when, in the 
second member of the sentence, he said: "tout ce 
qui vit se nourrit" for he knew well how interdepen- 



PRELIMINARY PARLE 3 

dent are the vegetable and animal, and now absolutely 
necessary the mineral kingdom is to the life of the 
vegetable and animal. He knew the habits of those 
carnivorous plants which, though in great measure 
nourished passively like other plants, feed actively 
by luring and imprisoning certain insects and other 
small intruders between their leaves until the bodies 
are consumed. The mutual nourishment of the vege- 
table and animal was to him a subject for much re- 
flection, and he was fully impressed with the correct 
notion that whilst the vegetable supplies the animal 
with its needed pabulum, the animal soon restored it 
to the soil, water, and air, whence the vegetable de- 
rives its nutrition. He knew that the lowest forms 
of vegetable and animal organisms obtain their sus- 
tenance from both kingdoms and are essential to the 
development of both. These views of the master 
were afterward fully confirmed by other naturalists 
who discovered that certain bacteria in the soil are 
necessary to the growth of higher vegetable organisms, 
whilst other bacteria are as necessary to the digestion 
of the food consumed by beast and man; and these 
modern laborers also discovered that some insects 
and certain birds carry pollen from plant to plant 
while absorbing from their flowers the nectar needed 
as their natural food; omnivorous man taking ad- 
vantage of whatever is offered for his sustenance by 
higher vegetables, by aquatic and terrestrial animals, 
and by mineral substances. 



DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 



II 

"Les animaux se repaissent; l'homme mange; l'homme 

d'esprit seul sait manger." 

The beasts feed ; man eats; the wise man alone knows how 
to eat. 

Such nice distinctions pertain essentially to the 
aesthetics of gastronomy. All deipnophilists know- 
that repaitre signifies to take nourishment, to feed, 
to eat. Therefore to feed, which is synonymous with 
to eat, may strictly be applied to the act of eating 
whether in the case of lower animals or of human 
beings. But in gastronomy the distinction between 
feeding and eating is admitted as justifiable. Surely 
the manner of feeding of certain lower animals is not 
pleasing to the sight or hearing of refined persons; the 
rodentia crunching noisily their hard nutriment; the 
herbivora browsing, nibbling the grass and chewing 
the cud; the carnivora growling while tearing and 
voraciously bolting the bleeding flesh; the omnivo- 
rous swine grunting while avidly and disgustingly 
gulping their food. Human creatures there are who, 
in imitation of these beasts, crunch noisily, brouse, 
nibble, munch, tear, bolt or gulp ravenously their 
aliments and even growl or grunt while doing so. 
Hence it is that such men are styled gormandisers or 
gluttons. There are also those who eat, as it were, 
mechanically, distractedly, without regard to the 
nature of the food, to its taste, or to its nutritive 
properties. They eat without thinking of, or caring 



PRELIMINARY PAKLE 5 

what they are eating. But the wise man, "Vhomrne 
d' esprit," knows what, when, and how to eat. He is 
careful of the choice of his food, of its mode of 
preparation and of its service. He assures himself of 
its special properties, selects such substances as are 
known to be of easy digestion at the same time that 
they are pleasing to the taste and to other senses, 
consumes them slowly, deliberately and thoughtfully, 
and thus not only satisfies hunger but gratifies appe- 
tite and promotes health. 



Ill 

"La destinee des nations depend de la maniere dout elles se 
nourissent." 

The destiny of nations depends upon the character of their 
diet. 

These thoughts expressed so briefly may have 
been suggested by the words of Dr. Kitchiner, who 
had said: "The destiny of nations has often depended 
upon the digestion of a prime minister;" or by what 
appeared in the preface to the third edition, 1804, of 
the Almanack des Gourmands, namely: "Combien 
de fois la destinee de tout un peuple n'a-t-elle pas 
dependu de la digestion plus ou moins prompte d'un 
premier ministre." 

How often the destiny of a whole people has de- 
pended on the more or less prompt digestion of a 
prime minister! 



6 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

It is well known that the gravest national and 
international questions are frequently decided at 
state dinners; favorably when the entertainment is 
successful; otherwise, fatally when the ministers or 
guests are not true lovers of good cheer, or when the 
digestive function of either is disordered. However, 
the Master, looking beyond the question of digestion, 
altered and paraphrased these older aphorisms and 
suited his version rather to the kind of aliments that 
may be consumed by the mass of individuals of divers 
nations, for the version is suggestive of the effect of 
particular dietaries upon these nations; believing an 
exclusive vegetable diet to be enervating and an 
exclusive animal diet brutalising. 

IV 

" Dis-moi ce que tu mange, je te dirai ce que tu es." 
Tell me what thou eatest, I'll tell thee what thou art. 

This simple paraphrase of the old saw: "Tell me 
who are thy friends, I'll tell thee what thou art," is 
eminently adapted to gastronomy. 

However well an individual may succeed in other- 
wise concealing the defects of his lack of proper early 
training, he is almost certain to betray them at the 
dinner table where a pottage of the most delicate 
flavor makes no impression on his obtuse gustation. 
He has no appetite for dainties but hungers for the 
grossest aliments; and any edible substance, provided 



PRELIMINARY PARLE 7 

it be plentiful, satisfies this hunger. His mode of 
eating and also his table manners scarcely ever fail 
to disclose a coarse, uncouth breeding. 

The proper management of the knife, fork, and 
spoon, the disposal of the napkin, and a host of other 
details pertaining to table good manners, learned from 
childhood in the refined home circle are among the 
amenities of the dining table and proclaim the true 
gourmet. 

This aphorism may therefore be lengthened by 
two words, thus: Tell me what and how thou eatest, 
I'll tell thee what thou art. 



"Le Createur, en obligeant l'homme a manger pour vivre, 
l'y invite par l'appetit, et Ten recompense par le plaisir." 

The Creator, in compelling man to eat that he may live, 
invites him through appetite and rewards him by pleasure. 

How exquisitely well expressed is this appreciation 
of the compulsion to eat that the creature may live, 
and how admirably tempered with invitation to the 
meal through hunger and appetite, and with recom- 
pense by the attendant sensual gratification! For, 
it is to the end of conserving the individual and pre- 
serving the species, as the author substantially says 
elsewhere, that the Creator designed the sense organs 
to place the creature in relation with tangible objects 
and so enable him to satisfy hunger, sustain life, 
gratify appetite, and enjoy the reward — pleasure. 



DIKING AND ITS AMENITIES 



VI 

"La gourmandise est un acte de notre jugement, par lequel 
nous accordons la preference aux choses qui sont agreables au 
gout sur celles qui n'ont pas cette qualite." 

Gourmetism is an act of our judgment by which we accord 
preference to things which are agreeable to the taste over those 
which have not this quality. 

Gourmetism seems- a proper rendering of gourman- 
dise in the sense in which it was used by the older 
writers on gastronomy. More recent authors have 
substituted gourmet for gourmand. Thus Fayot 
wrote: "Gourmand, gourmandise, c'est le pecheur et 
le peche; le type perfectionne du gourmand c'est le 
gourmet; I 'extreme oppose honteux, c'est le goulu. ,) 
The gourmet, he further said, is a prudent eater who 
knows thoroughly the value of what he eats. 



vn 

"Xe plaisir de la table est de tous les ages, de toutes les con- 
ditions, de tous les pays et de tous les jours; il peut s'associer 
a tous les autres plaisirs, et reste le dernier pour nous consoler de 
leur perte," 

The pleasure of the table is of all ages, conditions, countries, 
and days; it may be associated with all other pleasures, and 
remains the last to console us for their loss. 

Although the pleasure of the table is distinguished 
from the pleasure of eating, both are included in 
this aphorism as associated with all other pleasures, 
and as enjoyed to the fullest extent only by true 
gourmets who, besides gastronomy, represent high 



PRELIMINARY PARLE 



refinement in letters, science and art which are the 
main subjects of their lucubrations at the table. 



VIII 

" La table est le seul endroit ou l'on ne s'ennuie jamais pen- 
dant la premiere heure." 

The table is the only place where one is never wearied during 
the first hour. 

The refection proper does not ordinarily last longer 
than an hour, otherwise, it becomes tedious, for 
hunger is appeased, and appetite and gustation are 
gratified; then conversation lingers. It is generally 
at the end of the last service, when the sweets and 
the sparkling wines have been consumed, that the 
dinner is most interesting, for then the real pleasure 
of the table begins; the tongues are loosened, and the 
ears are opened to listen to the utterances of the wise 
and the eloquent. 

IX 

" La decouverte d'un mets nouveau fait plus pour le bonheur 
du genre humain que la decouverte d'une etoile. 

The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of 
humankind than the discovery of a star. 

This aphorism, evolved from a saying of the magis- 
trate Henrion de Pensey, was fully credited to him 

by Savarin, as follows: "M. le President H de 

P , dont Fenjouement spirituel a brave les glaces 

de l'age, s'adressant a trois des savants les plus 



10 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

distingues de 1'epoque actuelle (MM. de Laplace, 
Chaptal, et Berthollet), leur disait, en 1812: 'Je re- 
garde la decouverte d'un mets nouveau, qui soutient 
notre appetit et prolonge nos jouissances, comme un 
evenement bien plus interessant que la decouverte 
d'une etoile; on en voit toujours assez.' " ... I 
regard the discovery of a new dish, that sustains our 
appetite and prolongs our enjoyment, as a much more 
interesting event than the discovery of a star, for 
enough of these luminaries are always in sight. 

The Master evidently meant the discovery of a new 
alimentary substance as well as the discovery of a 
particularly pleasing new mode of preparation of any 
dish of food. 



"Ceux qui s'indigerent ou qui s'enivrent ne savent ni boire 
ni manger." 

Those who feed to surfeit or tipple to saturation know not 
how to eat or drink. 

The censure of excess implied in these wise words 
is at the same time an earnest plea for moderation. 
Assuredly the sottish glutton cannot well enjoy food 
and drink which, gulped in beastly style, distend the 
stomach to such a degree as to check the digestive 
process and so cause distress instead of pleasure. 

The knowledge of how to eat and drink comes of 
early training, and later from acquaintance with the 
properties of the divers food stuffs, with the best 
culinary methods, with the qualities of different bev- 



PRELIMINARY PARLE 11 

erages, and with the principles of hygiene. The re- 
fined deipnophilist eats and drinks slowly, deliberately 
and moderately, and, with calm reflexion and sound 
judgment, brings into play all his senses for the en- 
joyment of the delicacies of the menu. 

The use of strong drink, plain or in the form of 
cocktails, before eating; that unfortunate survival 
of an ancient bad habit as detrimental to the digestive 
function as it is to the whole man; that abominable 
propoma of old which has marred so many good men, 
should be abolished from all feasts in these days of 
greater hygienic enlightenment! 



XI 

" L'ordre des comestibles est des plus substantias aux plus 
legers." 

The order of the comestibles is from the most substantial 
to the lightest. 

This maxim bears the stamp of veritable hygienic 
gastronomy, for after the ostrean whet to appetite 
comes the substantial pottage followed by the fish, 
which is in turn followed by nourishing meats, and 
these by the entrees, the roast, the salad, and the 
light dessert. Such a meal, taken in moderation, 
while it satisfies the senses, is easily digested and 
readily assimilated. 



12 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 



XII 

" L'ordre des boissons est des plus temperees aux plus fu- 
meuses et aux plus parfumees." 

The order of the beverages is from the mildest to the strongest 
and highest flavored. 

Lovers of good cheer cannot fail to be favorably 
impressed with the wisdom of this dictum which they 
have so often realised by beginning with the mildest 
wine to wash down the delicate mollusks served as a 
whet, and continuing with wines of greater strength 
and aroma until the service of the sweet, sparkling 
dessert-nectar imbibed for its great diffusibility and 
its power to arouse loitering conversation and stimu- 
late conviviality; cordials and other strong drinks 
completing the list of beverages which the gourmet 
knows so well how to use becomingly. 



XIII 

" Pr^tendre qu'il ne faut pas changer de vins est une he>6sie; 
la langue se sature; et apres le troisieme verre le meilleur vin 
n'eVeille plus qu'une sensation obtuse." 

To pretend that wines should not be changed is a heresy; 
the tongue is soon saturated; and after the third glass, the best 
wine rouses but an obtuse sensation. 

The Master very wisely condemns this oinopotic 
heres}'-, this irrational notion of drinking continuously 
only a single kind of wine at a feast, which has long 
existed in the minds of those who have but little ac- 
quaintance with the properties of wine; believing that 



PRELIMINARY PARLE 13 

intoxication is averted by this deceptive precaution; 
whereas the imbibition of the same total amount of one 
wine or of several different wines produces the identi- 
cal effect. When one wine is used continuously, not 
only are the tongue's tactile papillse and gustative 
bulbs saturated by the fluid, but saturation, by the 
vinous fumes, occurs in the olfactive cells so that the 
aroma of the wine can no longer be fully enjoyed. 
The constant tippler or the inebriate does not have 
any sensual pleasure in drinking, but on the contrary 
is sorely distressed in mind and body by the toxicity 
of his frequent copious potations which have so 
blunted his gustation and olfaction and perverted his 
understanding as to render it impossible for him to 
enjoy the differing flavor and savor of divers delicate 
wines. 

XIV 

" Un .dessert sans fromage est une belle a qui il manque un 
oeil." 

A dessert without cheese is a belle who lacks an eye. 

In composing this aphorism, the Master made the 
happy choice of metaphoric language to express in 
the fewest words his notion that the absence of 
cheese is to the dessert what the loss of one of her 
eyes is to a belle. There is also, in the maxim, a 
latent idea which was then contrary to the current 
belief that cheese did not assist digestion, but which 
is now admitted to be correct, for certain cheeses 
such as the Gorgonzola, Stilton, and several of the 



14 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

soft cheeses, are known to contain micro-organisms 
that do have the property of greatly helping the di- 
gestion of other food. 

XV 

" On devient cuisinier, mais on nait rotisseur." 
We become cooks, but are born roasters. 

This is a paraphrase of Cicero's saying: " Nascimur 
poetce, fimus oratores" — We are born poets, we be- 
come orators. With regard to the commonly quoted 
"Poeta nascitur non fit," Professor J. Churton Collins 
said that "the primary idea came from the utterance 
of a Roman historian of no note or consequence who 
was incapable of so immortal a saying, but simply 
said that 'not every year is a king or a poet born."' 

The art of roasting is surely a natural gift, whereas 
the principles and practice of general cookery may be 
learned by study and training. A good cook may 
never attain high repute as a roaster, and an excellent 
roaster may never become a professed cook. Hence 
the later saying — 

" N'est pas rotisseur qui veut. C'est un don du ciel." 

XVI 

" La qualite - la plus indispensable d'un cuisinier est l'exacti- 
tude: elle doit etre aussi celle du couvie." 

The most indispensable quality of a cook is exactitude: ' it 
should be also that of the guest. 

This precept is warmly applauded by all lovers of 



PRELIMINARY PAKLE 15 

good cheer who regard its violation as a serious 
breach of duty on the part of the cook as well as that 
of the invited guest. The bon vivant Grimod once 
said: "Un veritable gourmand ne se fait jamais at- 
tendre." This punctuality is surely characteristic of 
the veritable gourmet, who knows of the habit of 
exactitude of good cooks, and of the sad conse- 
quences of the tardy arrival of guests. To be thus 
belated voluntarily or carelessly is an unpardonable 
crime of lese gastronomy punishable through the in- 
gestion of cold victuals or over-done meats, besides 
the scorn and frowns of the punctual attendants who 
are suffering for the sin of the delinquent. 

XVII 

"Attendre trop longtemps un convive retardataire est un 
manque d'egard pour tous ceux qui sont presents." 

To await too long the coming of a tardy guest is a want of 
regard for all those who are present. 

In a well-regulated household, the host is not likely 
to await, even for a few minutes, the arrival of tardy 
comers; every guest being under obligation to abide 
by unwritten laws of polite society and so be punc- 
tual to the minute. The diners present should be 
seated at the time specified in the invitation; other- 
wise, the host and the dilatory guests are guilty of 
an unpardonable affront to those who came at the 
appointed moment, and the belated are guilty of a 
lack of regard for the host. 



16 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

XVIII 

"Celui qui recoit ses amis et ne donne aucun soin personnel 
au repas qui leur est prepare^ n'est pas digne d'avoir des amis." 

He who receives his friends without giving personal care to 
the preparation of the repast, is not worthy of having friends. 

A truly hospitable host always bestows much atten- 
tion to the details of a feast offered to appreciative 
friends. He begins his labor of love, on the evening 
before, by writing the menu of the dinner, and on the 
following morning hands it to the cook with special 
directions relating to some of the dishes. To the 
butler he gives due instructions about the table ap- 
purtenances and the service; then selects the wines, 
and indicates those requiring a low temperature, and 
those which are to be gradually warmed. Finally, 
half an hour before dinner time he casts a last scru- 
tinising look at the table and at the beverages. 
Having completed his toilet, he enters the drawing- 
room and is ready to welcome his guests. He is 
verily an unworthy host who fails to take such pre- 
cautions as will assure the comfort and enjoyment of 

his friends. 

XIX 

"La maitresse de la maison doit toujours s'assurer que le 
cafe est excellent; et le maitre, que les liqueurs sont de permier 
choix." 

The mistress of the house should always assure herself of the 
excellence of the coffee; and the master should be equally sure 
that the beverages are of the choicest. 

Although coffee was commonly drunk at different 
times of the clay during the seventeenth century, the 
custom of sipping its strong infusion after dinner did 



PRELIMINARY PARLE 17 

not become general until the end of the eighteenth 
century. Then it was that so much attention began to 
be given to its preparation which was confided to the 
mistress of the house, who was particular not only to 
select the best grains but to give great care to their 
parching, milling and infusing. To the master of 
the house has alway belonged the scrupulous choosing 
of the other beverages. 

XX 

"Convier quelqu'un c'est se charger de son bonheur pendant 
tout le temps qu'il est sous notre toit." 

To entertain a guest is to promote his happiness while he is 
under our roof. 

Man has long been hospitable even among semi- 
barbarous peoples; witness the taking of salt, the 
banquet of Achilles to Hector, the barons of the mid- 
dle ages in their entertainment of friends, or of foes 
who happened to be under the sanctuary of their 
roof. The present civilised nations are no less hos- 
pitable, for their individual members are ever as- 
siduous in assuring the happiness of guests. 

These aphorisms, which epitomise, with the skill 
of a great master, the science of alimentation and the 
art of dining, could have emanated only from such an 
excellently trained mind as that of the illustrious 
deipnosophist who penned them during his seventieth 
year, after much travel in his own country of France, 
in Switzerland, and in America; always gathering 
useful information especially that sort relating to gas- 
tronomy. 



II 

THE ROLE OP THE SENSES IN THE PLEASURE OF EATING 

"The Creator, in compelling man to eat that he may live, in- 
vites him through appetite and rewards him by pleasure." 

Such is one of the sublime aphorisms of the great 
deipnosophist who regaled his readers with the vast 
abundance of gastronomic lore that has prompted 
the present statement of some of the features of the 
correlative influence of the senses on the pleasure 
of eating so admirably traced by the greatest of seers 
in these lines* 

. . . "The five best senses 

Acknowledge thee their patron; and come freely 

To gratulate thy plenteous bosom; th' ear 

Taste, touch and smell, pleased, from thy table rise; 

They only now come but to feast thine eye." 

True it is that nearly all animated beings are en- 
dowed with special senses, but to man alone is granted 
the faculty of cultivating them in a very high degree 
for bodily nourishment and mental enrichment as well 
as for other purposes. Forced by hunger to eat for 
his sustenance, he labored diligently in seeking the 
necessary aliments which, originally, he had found 
through the aid of certain lower creatures whose 
movements he had cunningly espied. The first sense 

18 



THE PLEASURE OF EATING 19 

he naturally exercised was that of sight; the second, 
touch, when with his hand he seized an edible sub- 
stance and carried it toward a third sense organ 
which gave him its odor, then greedily thrust it into 
his mouth to awaken the gustative sense; the clatter- 
ing of his teeth pleasantly rousing the auditive sense. 
Thus were the five senses gratified whilst hunger was 
satisfied; appetite, that is to say, the desire to eat 
tasty food because so agreeable, being the outcome 
of that primitive experience. 

It is the high cultivation of the senses that has been 
to man of such powerful aid in his struggle for ex- 
istence and that has given him such supremacy over 
other animated beings. Those whose sense organs 
are abnormal, whose perceptions are naturally dull 
or accidentally obtunded, or whose mental faculties 
are untutored, have little if any real pleasure in eat- 
ing. Hunger and thirst they feel and brutally ap- 
pease, but have no true appreciation of, or appetite 
for, dainty food or for its use in moderation; whilst 
those of cultured mind and sound body, in the en- 
joyment of delicacies, bring into play all their senses 
to enhance the pleasure of eating. This is summed in 
the aphorism: "The beasts feed, man eats, the wise 
man alone knows how to eat." 

Ardent lovers of good cheer are too often unjustly 
decried for sybaritism, for super-sensualism, by the 
thoughtless; but those who have made sufficient in- 
quiries into rational deipnophily admit that the wise 
cultivation of the divine gift of the five senses is not 



20 DINING- AND ITS AMENITIES 

only essential to the real enjoyment of edibles but 
is a blessing without which man would be but little 
above the beast. The pleasure of eating being the 
reward for the labor of gathering, preparing, serving, 
and consuming the food, it behooves all eaters to 
render wholesome aliments appetising and pleasing 
to the senses. Only such ascetics denounce gour- 
metism directly or indirectly as did a certain modern 
writer, who said: "It is bestial to make eating an 
absorbing object of thought. A man should eat to 
satisfy hunger, but if he allows his mind to run on his 
food, he will become a glutton and beast at the cost 
of his soul." These charges, intended as indirect 
thrusts at, but not really applicable to, the gourmet, 
could only have been made by one known to live on 
black bread and roots, one whose gustative sensibility 
is blunted and who cares not for goodfellowship. 
Therefore he could not have realised the import of 
the judicious use of the senses in the selection and 
consumption of tasty, wholesome aliments for the 
preservation of the integrity of body and mind. 
Otherwise he would have known that the veritable 
gourmet — who always has a good cook — is never 
gluttonish but is a dainty eater who does not give 
more thought to his daily food than necessary to 
assure himself of the excellence of its quality, and 
who regards the moderate and reasonable gratifica- 
tion of appetite and taste as pertaining to human 
intellect, and the mere satisfaction of hunger as belong- 
ing to the beastly instinct. The gastrolater being 



THE PLEASURE OF EATING 21 

one who makes eating "an absorbing object of 
thought," who, in brutish style, devours large quan- 
tities of food, generally regardless of quality, does not 
become gluttonous for he is a born glutton. 

The activity and interdependence of the senses are 
singularly well illustrated by the different pleasing 
sensations enjoyed during a feast given by an ex- 
perienced amphitryon. 

The visual sense is the first to be gratified. The 
moment the guests enter the refectory, their sight is 
gladdened by the brilliantly lighted and richly orna- 
mented table, the floral decorations on the snow-white 
cloth, the bright metallic implements, the crystalline 
drinking vessels, the good taste displayed in all the 
appurtenances of the well-ordered festal hall, and the 
congenial company. A new delightful visual im- 
pression then comes with each service, throughout 
the repast, to heighten the pleasure of eating. The 
form and coloring of each platter, the artistic disposi- 
tion of its contents, and the beauty of the plate on 
which dainty bits are served, all gratify vision and add 
to the pleasure felt in the deliberate degustation of 
the savory meats. The view through clear crystal of 
the amber hued mellow Xeres, of the rich Burgundy 
suggestive of liquid garnet, of the ruby of Bordeaux, 
of the topaz tinted Chateau Yquem, and of the myriad 
pearly beads ever rising to crown with foam a cup of 
the sparkling nectar of Aii, may well be counted 
among the many visual delights of such beatic 
revellers. 



22 DIKING AND ITS AMENITIES 

The tactile sense, so indispensable to all animated 
creatures, never fails to take cognisance, in the mouth, 
of the pungency, consistence and temperature of in- 
gested aliments. Manual touch, too, is especially 
gratified by the smoothness of those shapely modern 
implements for cutting and those for breaking up the 
food and for conveying it to the mouth where its 
consistency is more exactly determined by the action 
of the tongue and teeth. The exquisite tactile sense 
of the lips and tongue's tip is either supremely grati- 
fied or painfully roused when the fork, spoon, or 
food touches these guardians of the mouth which are 
ever ready to give warning of the too high or too 
low temperature of liquids or solids. The thermic 
sensibility of the tongue and mouth was once shock- 
ingly realised in the case of the voracious Doctor 
Samuel Johnson at dinner in good company. Feed- 
ing and talking at the same time with little inter- 
mission, he crammed in greedily a large scalding 
mouthful of food which he forthwith disgorged in his 
plate, saying to a fair neighbor: "a fool would have 
swallowed that." 

Certain aliments are enjoyed only when very 
warm and seasoned with pungent condiments. Tepid 
or cool they give no pleasing sensation. Vegetables 
are the more succulent and tasty when served very 
hot, notably the mushroom whose aroma thus height- 
ened gives almost as much pleasure as its savor. The 
perfume of the truffle is always delightful even in 
cold pasties, but is completely developed only by 



THE PLEASURE OF EATING 23 

heat. Coffee infusion is most agreeable to smell and 
taste when served at very near the boiling point. 
Such aliments as raw mollusks are enjoyable only 
when very cold. The crispness of some of the cold 
hors-d'oeuvres, so grateful to the dental tactile sense, 
is due in great part to the low temperature at which 
they are served. Crisp crusts also give a very pleas- 
ing sensation to the teeth. Some red wines, as the 
Burgundies, those of the Rhone and Gironde, and the 
heavy vintages of Spain, require a moderate degree 
of heat to develop their full aroma, whilst the light 
white wines as well as those of Xeres and Malaga 
must be cool to be pleasing to the tactile and gustative 
senses. All sparkling wines need to be very cold. 
Some northerly gourmets who are fond of very sweet 
sparkling wines prefer them cooled down to a fraction 
of a degree above the freezing point. 

The olf active sense, that chief detective, that Prov- 
ost Marshal of the sensory brigade, gives warning 
of foul odors which are abhorred because of their as- 
sociation with bad taste, and signals the most delicate 
perfumes of savory aliments before they reach the 
mouth, and enjoys them during and after deglutition. 
It is clear then that the acts of gustation and olfaction 
are almost simultaneous, by reason of the close 
proximity of the end-organs of smell and taste. So 
far as they relate to gastronomy, Savarin believed 
smell and taste to be merged into a single sense; 
saying substantially that man tastes nothing without 
smelling it, and the nose acts also as an advanced 



24 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

sentinel to challenge incoming unknown aliments. 
He gave some well-known examples of the correla- 
tion of the two senses, among which is — when the 
nasal membrane is in a high state of irritation from 
what is commonly called a cold in the head — taste is 
much impaired and often abolished while the trouble 
lasts. In such a case, although the tongue appears 
to be in its normal state, no savor is detected in what 
is eaten. 

The just appreciation of the delicate bouquet of 
good wines is a source of very high gratification to 
this sense which so quickly discerns and so greatly 
enjoys it before, during, and after imbibition; this 
last enjoyment being styled, figuratively, the echo 
of the sensation. No true gourmet ever things of 
drinking Madeira or white Port except in the fragile 
" morning glory" glass, or sparkling wines in other 
than the shallow, clear Cyprian bowl; in both for 
the artistic form of the vessels, so pleasing to the eye, 
in all cases to get the fullest enjoyable effect of their 
aroma, and in the last, to feast vision with the rising 
bubbles and the expansive foam. 

The memory of olfaction is worthy of special illus- 
tration although it is well known that the aroma of 
a wine may long dwell, as it were, in the mind of the 
connoisseur. An interesting tale, to this effect, has 
been told of a distinguished guest who, in discussing 
with his friends the merits of certain favorite wines, 
spoke warmly of the super-excellence of one of the 
Madeiras served from an unlabelled bottle and ven- 



THE PLEASUEE OF EATING 25 

tured to tell when, where, and with whom he had 
tasted the same wine; giving the date of the vintage. 
Thereupon the host smiled and said that, only a few 
hours before, the so highly prized wine had been pur- 
chased for a small coin at a corner shop. So confi- 
dent of his assertions was the guest that, after parting 
from the company, he went to the place indicated 
and bought the whole stock of several dozen bottles 
of the really valuable wine which proved to be what 
he had said concerning its characters, its vintage, 
and its original ownership, and afterward learned by 
what devious ways it had reached the spicery. Thus 
his memory of the. tint, aroma, and savor of the wine 
was rewarded, and he loyally retained possession of 
this delicious beverage whose original owner had died 
leaving no heirs. 

Professional wine-tasters use olfaction quite as 
much as gustation in their tests and do so by slow 
inhalations because probably they were told that the 
sense of smell begins in the upper half of each nasal 
cavity, and that the lingering of vinous fumes in this 
region of the olfactive cells and abundant twigs of 
the nerve of smell is, essential to the right appraisal 
of their qualities. 

The gustative sense, than which there is no more 
precious gift of the Creator to the creature, is culti- 
vable to a high state only by man, even from the hum- 
blest beginnings. It is likely that the first taster, 
perceiving what is now called sapidity in an odorous 
object, after bruising it in his mouth, swallowed it 



26 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

because good, and finding a second object malodorous 
and unsavory rejected it because bad or because it 
failed to cause the pleasing buccal sensation produced 
by the first. It may be said, therefore, that gustation 
or taste is the perception as well as the distinction of 
certain properties of ingested aliments. Perhaps a 
glance at the derivation of gustation and taste may 
help to a clear conception of the value of these terms; 
the one from gustare and the other intensively from 
tangere and formerly used synonymously with to 
test, to try, to feel, as appears when Hotspur says: 
". . . Come, let me taste my horse who is to 
bear me like a thunderbolt," and when Toby Belch 
says to Cesario: "Taste your legs, Sir; put them to 
motion." 

The French use altogether goti,t, while we have the 
two words gust and taste to convey the same idea 
or even different shades of meaning, and base there- 
upon our stock of qualifyers, etc.; thus from gust 
come gustation, gustative, gustatory, gustable, gust- 
ful, gustless, ingustible, disgustible, disgust, disgust- 
ful, disgusting, and from taste, tasting, tasty, tasteful, 
tasteless. Other expressions relating also to quality, 
such as sapidity, saporific, sapid, insipid; savor, 
savory, unsavory; flavor, flavoring, flavorless, etc., 
are in great request in gastronomy. 

Strictly, to taste is to test, try, feel with the tongue 
any alimentary or other substance put into the mouth 
with a view of ascertaining whether sapid or insipid, 
good, bad, or indifferent; the perception of these 



THE PLEASURE OF EATING 27 

characters being seated in the gustative center of 
the brain whence is reflected the general sensation of 
pleasure or displeasure. 

Taste, like many other words pertaining to alimen- 
tation, is much used figuratively, as in the expressions 
good or bad taste, or simply its want, in written or in 
spoken language, and in dress, deportment, art, etc.; 
the old adage, "De gustibus non est disputandum" 
being applied to both the original term and its figura- 
tive usage. For instance, an aliment which is agree- 
able to one individual may be repugnant to another. 
A particular work of art may give great pleasure to 
an uninformed gazer and fail to satisfy the sesthesis of 
vision of a good judge of such productions. Some 
forms or combinations of colors which are pleasing to 
the eyes of the multitude are often offensive to the 
few whose visual sense is highly cultivated. Certain 
odors are pleasing to some persons and displeasing to 
others, as in the case of meeting of an Athenian with 
a Spartan woman whose hair exhaled the penetrat- 
ing stench of a rancid unguent shocking to the olfac- 
tive sensibility of the delicately perfumed Athenian 
woman whose refined essences were equally repellant 
to the Spartan woman, so they simultaneously turned 
away in disgust. 

In gastronomy, taste requires long cultivation, and 
seldom reaches its maturity before the age of forty, 
despite refined home surroundings. Except, of course 
in the case of the fair sex, where is to be found the 
perfection of daintiness and veritable gourmetism 



28 DIKING AND ITS AMENITIES 

which is of the rarest occurrence in adolescent males. 
The hunger of youth is imperative and its cry is 
mainly for quantity. It is well known that many 
aliments disliked at twenty are relished at forty, 
and vice versa. The excellence of certain wines, such 
as those of Burgundy and of Madeira, is scarcely ap- 
preciated by the young who crave the sweet and 
sparkling. The gratification of the sense of taste 
gives the highest attainable pleasure only to the 
experienced gourmet who is wont to eat and drink, 
always in moderation, but with the greatest attention 
and reflexion; and remembers the Master's aphorism 
to the effect that " Those who feed to surfeit and 
tipple to saturation know not how to eat or drink." 

The seat of the end-organs of gustation is chiefly 
at the base and sides of the tongue which are the 
regions of the caliciform papillae and of their adjuncts 
the fungiform; the filiform papillae, disseminated upon 
nearly the whole lingual surface, being purely tactile. 
However, the concurrence of the tactile and olfactive 
senses is essential to perfect gustation and to the 
full enjoyment of delicious aliments.* 

Some experimenters have reached the conclusion 
that there are but two veritable savors; the sweet and 
the bitter, while others recognise three additional 

* Besides ramifications of twigs from the glosso-pharyngeal 
nerve and the lingual branch of the trigeminal, the caliciform 
papilla? contain the minute gustative bulbs discovered in 1867, 
by Schwalb and Loven. Thus the chain of specialising bodies 
in the end-organs of sense is complete, from the retinal rods and 
cones, the tactile and Pacimian corpuscles, the olfactive cells, 
to the organ of Corti in the ear. 



THE PLEASURE OF EATING 29 

savors, the saline, the alkaline, and the acid; but all 
reject the idea of acrid savors which really result 
from the mechanical action of acrid substances upon 
the tactile papillae of the tongue and indeed upon the 
whole buccal membrane. They all very properly 
discard the so-called aromatic savor which belongs 
exclusively to olfaction. 

Tasty aliments are often designated palatable, 
although the palate is passive as regards gustation; 
its office being purely mechanical. It serves as a 
firmly fixed surface against which the tongue bruises 
the food to express and diffuse sapid particles for 
quick action by the saliva without which there would 
be no gustation. The other parts of the buccal 
cavity are said to possess no more than tactile 
properties. 

The only truly gustible aliments are those contain- 
ing sweet, bitter, saline, alkaline, or acid principles. 
Hence the free use of condiments of such nature in 
good cookery, and of pungent condiments in modera- 
tion to stimulate all the papillae of the tongue. Fats 
are gustible from their mildly saline principle but 
generally need an addition of salt or sugar. Bread 
without salt would be tasteless. Sweet and acid 
fruits are always enjoyable when sufficiently ripe. 
Nuts of divers kinds are liked on account of their 
bitter or acid principle, and their taste is often im- 
proved by a sprinkle of salt or sugar. Distilled water 
is insipid but rendered sapid by the addition of a 
trace of salt or sugar. Wines are gustible by reason 



30 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

of the sugar therein contained; it is their aroma that 
gives the greater pleasure through olfaction. Very 
dry wines, with but a trace of sugar, act mechanically 
upon the lingual papillae, and their ethers are enjoyed 
through the sense of smell. Rum is gustible owing to 
its sweetness. The love of cocktails and other equally 
injurious mixed drinks is because of their bitter, 
sweet, and acid ingredients. Beer would be insipid 
but for its contained lupuline or other bitter sub- 
stance. 

Taste, then, with its closely associated olfactive 
and tactile senses, may be regarded, gastronomically, 
as the special and general sensation of pleasure or 
displeasure evoked by the perception and specialisa- 
tion of the temperature, succulence, sapidity, and 
perfume of aliments; and figuratively, as a judg- 
ment of the beautiful, the sublime, and the pictur- 
esque. 

Since the cooperative influence of the tactile and 
olfactive senses upon gustation have been shown in 
the foregoing notes, it remains to be told how audition 
contributes to the sense of taste and to the pleasure 
of eating. 

The auditive sense of diners is always attentive to 
the pleasing click of the knives and forks, is ever 
charmed by the musical gurgle of the beverages as 
they emerge from their slender-necked receptacles, 
and is enraptured by the mellifluous tones of the con- 
genial guests. In former times, during drinking 
bouts, the gurgling of decanting wine or the bursting 



THE PLEASUEE OF EATING 31 

of the foaming bubbles of ale not being as audible 
as the soldier liked, he contrived, to better satisfy 
audition, the clinking of the drinking vessels; and 
the ceremony is still observed. Iago's song tells of 
that custom which was very old even in the Eliza- 
bethan era. 

"And let me the canakin clink, clink; 
And let me the canakin clink: 
A soldier's a man; 
A life's but a span; 
Why, then, let a soldier drink." 

It is believed that good music, during a banquet, 
by its pleasing effect on the auditive sense, reflexively 
stimulates appetite and promotes conviviality. It 
was, probably, this notion that impelled the great 
among ancient civilised nations to keep their flute- 
players and other musicians, and even dancers, in 
constant action during convivial reunions; thus 
gratifying the senses of gustation and vision while 
catering for audition. Music seems to do more than 
charm the gourmet's audition since they believe that 
certain sounds, affecting the nerve which goes to the 
salivary glands, excite an increased flow of saliva so 
very indispensable to gustation. Here then the in- 
cident musical sounds serve to heighten the gratifica- 
tion of the gustative as well as the auditive sense, 
and offer a sufficient reason why, even in these modern 
times, musicians are so often kept in action during 
the period of deliberate degustation and thus check 






32 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

conversation which is so fatal to the full enjoyment 
of delicate aliments. Besides their natural fondness 
for music and on account of its good effect on gustation 
the majority of gourmets have another reason to de- 
sire its introduction at banquets, for they know that 
the act of mastication, by causing tension of the ear- 
drum, permits a greater appreciation of certain notes. 
Remotely related to the gustative sense is the quick 
perception, ready specialisation, and exquisite en- 
joyment of delicate, varied, and harmonious musical 
sounds, which together have been designated the 
savor of sounds; and those endowed with this rare 
auditory faculty of thus savoring sweet sounds, are 
sail to possess practically an additional sense. The 
true gourmet is ever as busy cultivating his senses 
as the athlete his muscles. 

The last, the most brilliant of all the services at a 
grand feast, is ushered in with its luscious dainties, 
sweet ices, fragrant fruits, delicate cheeses, and foam- 
ing wines, to crown with glory the sensual delight of 
eating and herald the intellectual pleasure of the table 
stimulated and intensified by the slow imbibition of 
wee cupfuls of sable mocha infusion, by the sipping 
of the nectarean cordials from tiny crystal vessels, 
and by the leisurely inhalation of delectable nicotian 
vapors. 

There is not a more beautiful illustration of the 
Creator's infinite wisdom than his endowment of man, 
for his preservation and happiness, with these won- 
derfully correlated and coordinated senses! 



THE PLEASURE OF EATING 33 

In closing, as in beginning, the citation is from the 
dear Master's aphorisms: 

"The pleasure of the table is of every age, condi- 
tion, country, and day; it may be associated with all 
other pleasures, and remains the last to console us for 
their loss." 



Ill 

THE REFECTORY AND ITS APPURTENANCES 
"Let this serve for table talk." 

Ancient and modern festal halls and their appur- 
tenances merit so much more notice than can be given 
them in the faint outline of this brief sketch, that the 
reader is expected to supply the details needed to 
complete the picture. 

Divers writers on deipnophily, in their very in- 
teresting expositions of the science of alimentation 
and the art of dining together with table manners and 
customs, say that in early European civilisation the 
refectory was a spacious hall in which were tables of 
rough, bare boards placed upon trestles: the scats 
being plain wooden benches, hence banquet to signify 
a convivial assembly: and that such was the hall 
styled ph Hit ion where the Spartan philitia or phei- 
ditia was served. They further say that, for a very 
long scries of years, the Lacedemonians and Greeks, 
in their pristine simplicity, had sat at table to eat, 
but that after their Eastern conquests, becoming 
luxurious, they adopted the Persian custom of re- 
clining on couches to enjoy the dainties served at the 
board: that Inter the Romans, in imitation of the 
Greeks, likewise reclined on couches while eating: 

34 



THE REFECTOEY 35 

that neither in Athens nor in Rome does it appear 
that much attention was given to the decoration, 
ventilation, or illumination of the refectories, except 
in the great halls of wealthy epicureans; and that the 
much travelled Archestratus must have brought 
about, in Athens, some improvements in these par- 
ticulars, as afterward in Rome probably did the 
renowned Lucullus whose ample dining halls were 
said to be airy, richly decorated, brilliantly lighted 
and contained splendid tables inlaid with ivory, tor- 
toise shell, and other precious materials, or made of 
citron wood or' of dappled maple. 

After the degradation of Rome, semi-savagery was 
rife and table luxury ended, whilst grossness in feed- 
ing, in taste and in deportment prevailed, and the 
revival of rational epicurism did not occur until the 
beginning of the sixteenth century. 

Modern writers who have described the banqueting 
halls of ancient England, where the knights and their 
followers were wont to feed on huge haunches of 
venison and quaff great tankards of ale, speak of the 
table as it was prepared for the daily refection during 
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, specifying: 
A bare board on trestles, a bench to sit upon, tan- 
kards for the ale, goblets for the wine, wooden plates 
for the food, the tranchoir of bread, the salt, the knife, 
the spoon. Such was the prevalent style of setting 
the table for a feast throughout Europe until the reign 
of King Charles IX when his mother Catherine suc- 
ceeded in reforming table-dressing, at the French 



36 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Court, and made it correspond in character to the 
service of the delicacies which she required to satisfy 
true gourmetism. From that time, much more at- 
tention was paid to the refectory and its appur- 
tenances, and during the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries many ornamental devices were introduced 
for the embellishment of the table and for the grati- 
fication of guests. But at this day, in the civilised 
world, the ornamentation of the refectory and of the 
table is very much simpler and incomparably superior 
in comfort and true elegance to all that was accom- 
plished during and long after the enlightened era of 
the fourteenth Louis. 

These preliminary outlines of the sketch naturally 
lead to a glance at the first garment used in England 
and France for the adornment of the table, namely, 
the napery; which, however, was used in Rome during 
the first century of the Christian era, as told by 
Martial: 

"Let this woollen cloth protect your splended citron 
table. On mine a dish may be placed without doing 
harm." 

But the table cover was in use long before the 
Romans by their masters in gastronomy, letters, sci- 
ence, and art, as it appears in the "Sojourner" of 
A.ntiphanes : 

"Hither I come and bring a table setter, 
Who shall soon wash the cloths and trim the lamps, 
Prepare the glad libations and do everything 
Which to his office may pertain." 



THE REFECTORY 37 

Perhaps the earliest attempt, in the middle ages, 
to clothe the naked table was that made in the twelfth 
century when a woollen cloth was spread upon it to 
serve in part for wiping the diners' grimy hands. 
Much later, the table cloths were of silk variously 
colored and embroidered, and still later were made of 
white linen. 

Small napery, for wiping the hands, was in use be- 
fore the time of Domitian, and the fact is mentioned 
by Martial in the fifty-ninth epigram * of his eighth 
book: "The servants lose cups and spoons, and many 
a napkin is warmed in the secret folds of his dress." 
Hay's metrical version is as follows : 

"He'll make the servants hunt for spoons; and clap 
His napkin in his breeches, not his lap." 

The first napkins used in France are said to have 
been given by the city of Rheims in 1380, to Charles 
VI on the occasion of his coronation. The table nap- 
kin, then regarded as a royal luxury, soon became 
a necessity and an ornament when suitably disposed 
upon the dining table, so the folding of napkins began 
to be viewed as one of the nice features in the art of 
decorating the table which, at length, was made so 
much of that in the year 1662 was published an elab- 
orate treatise on the subject, with the title "La 
Plissure des Serviettes." In that work, it is said, are 
given minute directions for folding napkins in scores 
of different forms representing particular vegetables, 

* "On a one-eyed thief." 



38 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

fishes, birds, hares, and other beasts. This task, in 
private families, was generally assigned to the butler 
who ever took much pride in the endeavor to surprise 
and amuse the guests by his excellent models of many 
forms of vegetable and animal life in white linen. In 
large establishments, this artistic work was confided 
to an expert who devoted to it nearly all his time. 

This sketch will permit only a passing reference to 
the modern refectories and table dressing of the great 
clubs or of all the homes of the opulent and tasteful 
in Europe and America, with their brilliant electric 
illumination as contrasted to the air-fouling candle 
light or gas jet, or the smoky oil lamps of ancient 
times. But some of the appurtenances of these festal 
halls are such as to merit a little closer scrutiny. 

Many of the sideboards, chairs and tables of the 
present time are superb monuments of highly artistic 
designing and skilful artisanship, often made of 
precious woods and susceptible of the highest polish, 
especially the table which is generally left bare until 
wanted for use when its smooth, glossy surface is 
protected by a layer of thick felt or of asbestos cloth 
over which is spread the richest damask napery. 
This snow-white texture is then very simply dec- 
orated with a few sparsely strewn green sprigs and 
pink flowers, which appeal pleasingly to the visual 
sense so often and so long before offended by the pre- 
tentious pieces montees, epergnes, candelabra, and other 
undecorative decorations, all of which sham orna- 
ments only serving to encumber the table and ob- 



THE REFECTOBY 39 

struct the view of opposite diners. The other mate- 
rials of adornment for the table, agreeable to sight, 
delightful to taste, useful and truly ornamental, are 
the cold hors-d'wuvre, and fresh and preserved fruits 
placed upon shallow silver, porcelain, or crystal re- 
ceptacles suitably disposed amidst the green sprigs. 
On the right of each cover are placed the drinking 
vessels; in the center is a richly decorated plate, 
styled the "stand plate," which is not removed until 
the service of the fish; on the right side of this plate 
are the knives, and on its left are the forks, whilst the 
spoons are in front. The smaller napery, folded in 
divers attractive forms, each containing a tiny loaf, 
is placed on the stand plate. 

Anent other dinner plates, a few words will suffice 
to suggest the accessories needed to complete this 
part of the picture. It is evident that some kind of 
plate serving as receptacle for food taken at table, 
has been in use from remote antiquity, if the speci- 
mens exhibited in museums are genuine. One of 
these was seen in the collection of archaic pottery of 
one of these museums. It is a neatly decorated 
earthen -ware object, in bright coloring and good 
design, of the form and size of an ordinary dinner 
plate, taken from the ruins of an ancient Central 
American city and supposed to be pre-Columbian. 
Some glass plates found in Cyprus are said to date 
back several thousand years. Such plates doubtless 
were made also by those skilful glass workers, the 
Sidonians of old. Metal dishes and plates were used 



40 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

in early times at the tables of the wealthy and were 
of silver or of gold, elaborately ornamented, as were 
the spoons and goblets many of which were lavishly 
given away by profligate hosts to the guests at the 
close of entertainments. The baser metals too were 
largely employed in the production of food recepta- 
cles. Pewter plates are still to be found in old rural 
dwellings, and tin plates are in daily use in certain 
public institutions. Wooden plates were in general 
use even among the opulent during the fourteenth 
century and later. The modern thin wooden plates, 
thrown away after the meal, are often found very 
convenient to ruralising city bumpkins. Dinner 
plates of earthen-ware were unknown in France and 
England in the fifteenth century; the nobility using 
silver dishes and plates, and the common people 
placing their cut of meat upon a roundish slice of 
bread. 

None but a lettered Mandarin is likely to be able 
to tell how long since the Celestial Empire began to 
produce vases and plates of porcelain. It is not 
much more than two centuries that Europeans con- 
trived to make fine porcelain, but they have since 
excelled the Chinese in the form and decoration of 
plates and of other utensils; witness the exquisite 
products of Florence, Sevres, Limoges, Vienna, Dres- 
den, Berlin, Derby, Bristol, Plymouth, Lowestoft, 
Worcester, and Lambeth. American potters have 
lately entered the lists and will soon become fair com- 
petitors in the ceramic art. 



THE KEFECTOBY 41 

The richness of decoration of porcelain plates in 
actual use among the affluent is such as to constitute 
the most attractive feature in the ornamentation of 
the table, as pleasing to the eye as it is charming to 
the mind. Grimod, in his interesting article on porce- 
lain, said: "Of all the objects which contribute to the 
decoration of a table, porcelain is perhaps that which 
most agreeably flatters the eye, because to its extreme 
neatness are added elegance in form and brilliancy in 
coloring, to charm sight and enliven imagination." 

Another enthusiast's view of the pleasing effect of 
beautiful porcelain upon the sesthesis of refined diners 
is here reproduced from Lady Morgan's sketch of a 
dinner prepared by the famous chef Careme at Baron 

Rothschild's villa. : 

..... "The dining room stood apart from the 
house, in the midst of orange trees; it was an elegant 
oblong pavilion of Grecian marble, refreshed by foun- 
tains that shot in the air scintillating streams, and the 
table, covered with the beautiful and picturesque des- 
sert, emitted no odor that was not in perfect con- 
formity with the freshness of the scene and the fervor 
of the season. No burnished gold reflected the glar- 
ing sunset, no brilliant silver dazzled the eye; porce- 
lain, beyond the price of all precious metals by its 
beauty and its fragility, every plate a picture, con- 
sorted with the general character of sumptuous sim- 
plicity which reigned over the whole, and showed how 
well the masters of the feast had consulted the genius 
of the place in all." 



42 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

In thinking of cutting implements, there inevitably 
comes to the mind the idea of a sharpened stone with 
which the early man skinned the animals he had killed 
with a stick of wood, of the bronze knife with which 
his ascendant in cunning and ferocity slaughtered 
beast and man, of the tempered iron weapon with 
which the next, more valorous, man overcame his 
neighbor of the bronze edge-tool, and of the keen 
sword and dague of the civilised warrior as his table 
cutlery. In the polite society of less than three hun- 
dred years ago each diner used his own pocket knife 
to cut up the food on his plate; the heavy cutlery 
being in the kitchen where the carving was done with 
large knives adapted to the purpose, but the carving, 
of a deer or a boar roasted whole, was often done on 
the table upon which the "Chevalier trenchant" 
would leap, do his work, jump off and disappear. 
Fine table cutlery was not in fashion until the begin- 
ning of the eighteenth century ; but to the nineteenth 
belongs the achievement of simplifying the process 
of steel making on truly scientific principles. The 
cutlers of England, France, Germany, and America 
have ever since been able, at comparatively little 
cost, to supply the demand for the best table knives 
with ivory, mother of pearl, enamel, silver, or gold 
handles. Silver and gold fruit knives of the most 
exquisite designs are of much older date. 

The fork is apparently a modern innovation, for 
it is not mentioned in the writings of early times, nor 
is it included in the specification of the useful objects 



THE KEFECTOKY 43 

placed upon the dinner tables of the Barons of old, 
ending with "the^knife, the spoon," without the least 
semblance of a suggestion of anything like a fork, 
which utensil seems to have been invented in Florence 
or Rome, and, as a novelty, brought to France by 
Catherine de Medicis. It is strange that such an in- 
dispensable implement to the table was not anciently 
suggested by Neptune's trident from which was prob- 
ably evolved the furca used by the Romans as a 
weapon and also as an instrument of punishment. 
From this furca came the Italian forcone,, pitchfork, 
and forchetta, little fork, and the French fourche, with 
its diminutive fourchette. The first forks were two- 
pronged and of wood or iron. Long afterward a 
third prong was added, and still later these forks were 
made of ivory, silver, or gold, with four prongs and of 
more graceful form. At present, oyster and fish forks 
of peculiar designs are made of the precious metals 
as are other sorts intended for divers purposes. 

Concerning spoons something may be told besides 
the mouldy horse-chestnut that they were not evolved 
from the bill of the ornithorhynchus horridus, or of 
the duck, or of other spoon-billed fowl, but from a 
bit of wood like a Chinese chop-stick with the broad- 
ened end, or from a shovel-like wooden implement, 
such, probably, as that used by Turks in eating 
pilau, or from a shell, as its Latin name cochleare, 
spoon, implies. The well-known fact is that spoons 
have been in general use ever since the cunning mother 
of Jacob learned to make lentil puree, and perhaps 



44 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

long before that event which she thought would be so 
advantageous to her promising son, for the contents 
of the flesh pots of Egypt, probably during many ages 
anterior to Jacob, had to be stirred and eaten with 
some kinds of ladles or spoons. Professor Maspero, 
director of the Cairo Museum, has catalogued spoons 
of horn, ivory, and other substances, some of which 
are supposed to have been used, many thousand 
years ago, for extracting unguents and perfumes from 
their receptacles. One of the archaic glass spoons 
unearthed in Cyprus has the precise form and size 
of the modern dessert spoon. It is clear, from the 
foregoing statement, that wood, horn, ivory, glass, 
iron, bronze, pewter, silver, and gold, have long been 
used in forming this implement so necessary for the 
service and for the ingestion of some fluid and semi- 
solid aliments. 

Of the early use of drinking vessels, the writer will 
strive to adhere closely to the subject, and therefore 
will not begin with a history of the material universe 
and dissert lengthily lest he be in a similar position to 
that of the lawyer pictured in Racine's only comedy, 
"The Pleaders," wherein the Judge, after listening to 
the prolonged, irrelevant erudition of that attorney 
all about a stolen capon, said to him : " Sir, please pass 
on to the deluge." Nevertheless the writer is bound 
to say that, originally, man, not being possessed with 
any kind of drinking vessel, was wont to quench his 
thirst after the manner of beasts, but finding this 
inconvenient used his hand as a dipper ; then had re- 



THE REFECTORY 45 

course to a molluskan shell or some other concave 
object; and that it was very long before he discovered 
the properties of plastic clay and so produced the 
first sun-baked drinking cup. The writer will now 
pass on to the post-diluvian period and make brief 
reference to the ancient silver and golden goblets 
ornamented with rich gems; to the ornate Egyptian 
drinking cups of glass; to the exhumed Cyprian 
glass goblets, irridescent with age; to the crystal 
and myrrhine cups out of which the Romans drank 
their luscious Setine and Falernian wines ; and lastly 
say a word on the splendid productions of the glass- 
blowing establishments of England; of France, where 
Baccarat sent forth such marvelous ware ; of Bohemia ; 
of Venice, where Salviati's works became so justly 
renowned; and of America, which has made such 
long strides toward the improvement of cast, pressed, 
cut, and engraved glass vessels, clear or tinted, and 
of the most graceful forms. 

An electrically illuminated refectory with its com- 
fortable chairs and ample table whose snowy napery 
is decorated with green sprigs and pink flowers, rich 
porcelain, brilliant glass and silver-ware, is a truly 
great joy to the visual sense of all guests, whose other 
senses are to be gratified in the highest degree in 
correspondence with the splendor of the ornaments 
which have so gladdened their sight, especially when 
the feast is graced by the presence of ladies, whose 
daintiness, cheerfulness, and spirited conversation 
add so much to the pleasures of the table. 



IV 



FRAGMENTS ON THE EVOLUTION OF COOKERY AND 
GASTRONOMY 

"The destiny of nations depends upon the character of their diet." 

Embrionicly an aquatic being, man was wont to 
live near the shores of lakes or of streams from which 
he could assuage his thirst after the fashion of his 
poor relation the four-footed beast. His aliments 
were simple, but fairly varied. The first edible ob- 
jects that attracted his attention were probably 
mushrooms, which are so nourishing as to have been 
commonly called vegetable beef by modern rustics. 
Until the sylvan man found the security of a cave, 
he necessarily led an outdoor life; climbing trees by 
night for protection against predacious beasts, and 
descending by day to procure food and drink. His 
nails were hard and long, fit for digging up the truffle 
discovered for him by a gluttonous, grunting, pachy- 
dermatous relative. After long observing the meth- 
ods and apparent delights of this bulbophagous pur- 
veyor, he added the newly found bulb to his diet of 
more accessible fungi, grasses, roots, nuts and sweet 
fruits. Thus, for ages before he became ichthy- 
ophagous, he was a gastrodic lachanophagist. Being 
migratory by nature and adventurous by inclination, 

46 



COOKEEY AND GASTRONOMY 47 

for lack of the better means of transportation evolved 
since his time, he followed on foot and on terra firma, 
the course of the smaller streams to the valleys of the 
great rivers, and finally reached the sea coast where 
he was able to add mollusks, crustaceans, and some 
of the larger fish to his meagre fare. Having always 
tasted in the raw state the animal food obtained 
from the lakes, the rivers, and the sea, he began to 
experiment with the flesh of small warm-blooded 
beasts, which for a long period he ate raw.* He had 
already made weapons of offense and defense, as 
shown in the portraiture of Haeckel's man. 

In time, fire was discovered, in all likelihood by 
an accident occurring to a small boy, the scion of a 
lineal ascendant from a far ancestor of the Neander- 
thal man, cousin of the first Spy man; this ancestor 
having ascended from pithecanthropus erectusrf who 

* The cannibals of the South Sea Islands originally ate their 
"long-pig" in the raw state — "long-pig" being human flesh 
and "short-pig" pork. Raw flesh of different beasts is even now 
eaten, not only by savages but by rustics of several European 
nations. Wadd relates that Calif Merwan II could never ap- 
proach a sheep without wrapping his hand in the corner of his 
robe and tearing out the kidney, which he instantly devoured, 
and then called for a clean habit. When he died ten thousand 
greasy vests were found in his wardrobe. 

It is recorded that Richard Cceur de Lion, being ill, longed 
for a dish of pork, and that, as none could be obtained, a young 
Saracen was cooked and served to him as roast pig, which he 
greatly enjoyed, without having discovered the fraud, and was 
ever after very fond of roast pig. 

The heart of the murdered Marechal d'Ancre, prime minister 
of Louis XIII, having been cut away, was thrown among the 
people, several of whom seized and devoured portions of it in 
the raw state. 

t Pithecanthropus erectus. — In September, 1891, Dr. Eugene 
Dubois, a surgeon of the Dutch troops stationed in central 



48 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

sprang from the X generation — in progressive scale 
of evolution — of chimpanzee who ascended from a 
distant successor of orang who is a far away, erect and 
aristocratic relation of gorilla, who . . . That 
irrepressible small boy — the homologue of the mis- 
chievously enterprising small boy of to-day and of 
his congeners forever— while playing with two sticks 
of dry wood found that they soon acquired a pleasant 
warmth which, however, increased very rapidly with 
friction, and, to his amazement, caused ignition of 
the tinder which burned his hands; the absence of 
superfluous garments accounting for his escape from 
incineration. (His was the first case of burn to be 
recorded.) He then quickly flung away in affright 
and pain the enkindled sticks, which caused a con- 
flagration in the brush that carbonized the smaller 
quadrupeds and converted the larger into roasted 
venison which some elder savages found to be tooth- 
some. Such, doubtless, was the earliest beginning of 
cookery. Later attempts, on a seemingly rational 
basis, were made, judging from the reports of explor- 

Java, found in the left bank of the river Bengawan, embedded 
in rock one meter beneath the level of the lowest water mark in 
the dry season, a molar tooth; one month later he discovered, 
on the same plane of this stratum, a cranium; and nearly a 
year thereafter, a thigh bone, and finally another tooth; all 
belonging, he said, to the same animal which he linked between 
the gibbon and the first Spy man, and which he named pithe- 
canthropus erectus. Attention was called, in America, to Dr. 
Dubois' discovery of this ape-man or man-ape by the late Pro- 
fessor O. C. Marsh, who published two interesting papers on the 
subject; the first in the February, 1895, number of the American 
Journal of Science, and the second in the June, 1896, number of 
the same Journal. 



COOKERY AND GASTRONOMY 49 

ers of cave dwellings. Other explorers assert that 
quasi systematic cooking of food was practised by 
remote ancestors of troglodytes not long after the 
accident that happened to the aboriginal promethean 
gamin who invented fire, was a roaster by chance 
and consequently the precursor of all cooks, on whose 
escutcheon he should be represented in the act of 
rubbing his two sticks. . . . 

Savages and semi-civilised tribes still feed on raw 
mushrooms, acorns, nuts, dates, and other fruits, 
and resort to cooking only when they are able to se- 
cure the larger game, then they feed to repletion like 
the wild carnivorous beasts. . . . 

Since beasts feed, men eat, but men of genius alone 
know how to eat, the science of gastronomy belongs 
to the highest state of civilisation, and seems to have 
arisen in the Orient. . . . 

How much the Chinese, Hindoos, Assyrians, or 
Egyptians * may have contributed to early deip- 
nosophic lore is not known to ordinary mortals, but 
perhaps the question is answerable by the pandits 
in Oriental history, linguistics and customs. Several 
ancient and modern knights of the quill have, how- 
ever, asserted that the Greeks of Attica gleaned from 

* "When the Egyptians made an expedition against Ochus, 
King of Persia, and were defeated, and the King of the Egyptians 
taken prisoner, Ochus treated him with great humanity, and 
invited him to supper. There was a very splendid preparation 
made; the Egyptian laughed at the idea of the Persian living so 
frugally. ' But if you wish,' said he, ' O King, to know how happy 
kings ought to feast, permit those cooks, who formerly belonged 
to me, to prepare for you an Egyptian supper.' . . . Ochus 
was delighted at the feast. . . ." (Athenseus, Book IV). 



50 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

the Persians their notions of luxury and especially 
of better cookery, about which Archestratus wrote a 
poem bearing the title of Gastrologia or Gastronomia, 
now sometimes called the Greek Almanack des 
Gourmands, but lost among the many literary treas- 
ures that have perished through the vandalism and 
savagery of the illiterate. 

The only knowledge extant of the writings of this 
Archestratus is derived from Athenseus, the great 
compiler of Greek and Roman deipnology * 

Prior to the Persian wars, Greek fare was plain and 
even gross, judging from the early history of the 
nation and from the Homeric and other writings. 
During the time of the republic "an Athenian feast 
was regarded by neighboring nations as a homely 
entertainment," and it is said that Pericles and other 
great men, when meeting at a friend's house, were 
each followed by a slave bearing provisions for his 
master's use — a veritable picnic. By the by, the 
origin of the term picnic was supposedly traced to the 
facetious Athenian gamins by a castaniculturist of the 
Joe Miller character and literary acumen, who did 

* For his poem on gastronomy, Berchoux seems to have re- 
ceived the inspiration from what he could learn of Archestratus' 
work through Athenseus, the Greek grammarian, native of Nau- 
cratis in lower Egypt, who nourished during the third century 
of the Christian era, and of whom Bayle speaks as follows: "He 
was one of the most learned men of his time; he had read so 
much and remembered so many things that he could justly be 
called the Varro of the Greeks. Of all his works there remains 
only the one bearing the title of The Deipnosophists — the sophists 
at the table — in which he introduces a certain number of learned 
men of all the professions, who discourse of an infinity of subjects 
at the festive board of a Roman citizen named Laurentius." 



COOKERY AND GASTRONOMY 51 

not seem to be aware that those Greek feasts for 
which each guest furnished his share of the comesti- 
bles, bore the name of eranos, i. e., picnic. Neverthe- 
less, here is the interpretation of the would-be 
philologic chestnut gatherer: "Pericles had a slave, 
a native of Nicomedia, known to have a sour dispo- 
sition and a bitter tongue, on which account he was 
nicknamed the picrous Nicomedian. When the 
master sallied forth to some feast, accompanied by 
his slave, the street urchins of Athens, who had little 
respect for rank, less for age, and none for name, 
were in the habit of saying, ' there goes old Peric with 
his Pic Nic carrying grub to the feast.' In time, 
whenever each guest conveyed his share of food to a 
meal, this feast itself came to be called a picnic, just 
as the term banquet is now applied to a feast, although 
originally banquette was the small bench on which 
the guests sat." . . . 

The Lacedaemonian kopis differed from the eranos 
regarding the source of supply of the food and the 
character of the guests. This kopis was an officially 
provided feast at the expense of the city; all, even 
sojourning foreigners, were invited to take part in 
the feast in which no other than goat's meat was 
served, each guest receiving a little loaf made of 
meal, oil, and honey, a newly made cheese, a slice of 
paunch, some black pudding, beans, sweet-meats, and 
dried figs. The aiklon differed from the kopis as to 
the source of its supply which was individual and not 
official. It consisted in the distribution of loaves 



52 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

of bread and slices of meat; an attendant following 
the servant who distributed the portions, and, pro- 
claiming the aiklon, gave at the same time the name 
of the host. . . . The dessert of the phiditia — 
the common supper of the Spartans — was called the 
epaiklon and consisted of meal steeped in oil, sweet- 
meats, etc. 



By their wars, the Athenians enriched their native 
stores with exotic germs of knowledge and civilisa- 
tion. With this civilisation came great luxury which 
could be supported only by the wealth they acquired 
from vanquished enemies. . . . 

The Romans, who emulated the Greeks in some of 
their learning, few of their virtues, many of their 
vices, and all of their luxury, were never gastronomes 
such as were the refined Athenians, but relied more 
on the quantity than on the quality and delicate 
preparation of aliments. They copied servilely the 
Greek orgies, and their banquets consisted of a vulgar 
profusion in meats as well as wines, and those wines 
were generally sophisticated. Both Greeks and 
Romans were in the habit of mixing their wines, not 
only with honey, but with spices, with the juices of 
aromatic herbs, and with other substances.* . . . 

Certain foreigners, crassly ignorant of this coun- 

* A drinker of unmixed wine was called by the Greeks acrato- 
potes, just as now a drinker of raw liquor, he who drinks his 
"two fingers" of "whiskey straight," is called a soaker, a toss- 
pot, or a tank. 



COOKERY AND GASTRONOMY 53 

try's customs, having sneeringly attributed the in- 
vention of mixed drinks to the Americans, it is 
high time to traverse their gratuitous assumption. 
Besides, the mixed drinks of America are assuredly 
more palatable than could possibly be to us, anything 
like the ancient mixtures of wine, honey and spices, 
or the modern concoctions wrongly styled American 
drinks and served at European cafes. There is not 
the least adumbration of a doubt that mixed drinks 
similar in effect to mulled-wine, sherry-cobbler, san- 
garee, vermuth, absinth, mint-cream, anisette, kiim- 
mel, curagoa, maraschino, chartreuse, Benedictine, 
and other cordials, brandy-smash, gin-phizz, whiskey- 
sour, John-Collins, horse-neck, eye-openers,* cock- 
tails of brandy, gin, or whiskey, mint-julep, punch, 
Tom-and-Jerry, spiced-rum, hot apple-toddy, egg- 
nogg, and many other compounds of like character, 
were in great vogue long ages before the most remote 
ancestors of father Christopher, the discoverer, and 
Vespuccio, the pirate, had undertaken to teach their 
grandsires the ancient art of ovi suction. . . . 

A feast without intellectual converse and witticism 
must be dull in the extreme and bear a close resem- 
blance to the beastly feed of savages. The ancients 
were so attentive to the details conducive to con- 
viviality that, besides story telling, they introduced 
vocal and instrumental music, and even dancing as 

* Marcus Aufidius Lurco was surely one of the early advocates 
of the "eye-opener," for Horace has it that 

"Aufidius first, most injudicious, quaff 'd 
Strong wine and honey for his morning draught." 



54 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

parts of the entertainment. During their feasts the 
Athenians often discussed the derivation of words, 
among other things, and some of them were especially- 
fond of punning upon these words (the punsters, 
though tolerated, were not in good intellectual odor) 
and of relating humorous anecdotes of which they 
had an abundant fund. This habit of word study, 
indulged by men of culture and leisure, seems to have 
been one of the chief factors in the purification of 
Attic Greek. However, despite the intellectual part 
of Grecian banquets, which should have sufficed for 
rational amusement and for preventing evil proceed- 
ings, the wealthy too often descended to a degree of 
debauchery which has left an indelible blot on the 
character of that once great nation. At some of the 
banquets, hired courtesans danced in a state of nudity 
in presence of the drunken guests. Athenseus gives 
a full account of such an orgie during the marriage 
feast of Caranus, a wealthy Macedonian. Since his- 
tory has always been known to repeat itself, it may 
be remembered that such a scene was enacted not very 
long ago in a megalopolis, the morals of whose denizens 
are not below the general average. 



The private feasts which succeeded the frugal phi- 
ditia of the early Greeks were often on a grand and 
extravagant scale in imitation of the Persian ban- 
quets. The wealthy Persians were wont to celebrate 
their birth-days by feasts, at each of which were served 



COOKERY AND GASTRONOMY 55 

an ox, an ass, a horse, and a camel, roasted whole. 
This clearly proves the modern barbecue * — an abbre- 
viated transmogrification, by the by, of de la barbe a 
la queue, from the beard to the tail — to be a very old 
and gross way of entertaining, a sort of gormandising 
vandalism.! There is no knowing where the Per- 
sians themselves learned the trick of roasting large 
animals, unless it were through the legend of the pre- 
historic lad who set a prairie on fire and smoked and 
grilled all, both great and small. . . . 

In speaking of the extreme luxury of the Persians, 
Xenophon tells of men who travelled great distances 
to find pleasant food and drink for the King, and of 
ten thousand of his subjects who were always busy 
contriving new and nice dishes for him; besides, he 
offered prizes of large sums of money to those who 
would invent new pleasures. Despite the magnificence 
displayed in the ostentatious kingly banquets, there 
sometimes seemed to be method in this splendor and 
even perhaps some economy, for among the thousand 
victims sacrificed every day for a feast, there were 
many horses, asses, camels (probably disabled ani- 
mals), oxen, stags, sheep, ostriches, geese, and cocks; 
a moderate portion being served to each of the King's 
mess-'mates, so that there was no waste. . . . 

*' * This is said to be an absurd bit of pseudo-philology. How- 
ever that may be, si non vero e ben trovato, for it is quaintly 
humorous. 

f Prince Henry (Henry IV, part I) speaks of fat Jack as " that 
roasted Manningtree ox with a pudding in his belly." ... It 
was apparently the custom at that time to serve a roasted ox 
at the Manningtree fair. 



56 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

This record of the Persian fondness for horse and 
camel eating may prove interesting to those who 
remember the abortive attempt, made about forty 
years ago, to introduce hippophagy in this country 
as an economic measure. To the Yankee this was 
suggestive of glanders, anthrax, actimycosis, and other 
vile pestilences, and his vision, olfaction, gustation, 
and digestion, unlike the Persian's, rebelled against 
any dainty dish having a horsy odor or savor, such as 
horse-tail soup, a horse rib roast, collop, or steak, or 
a filet chevalique aux champignons. The French, 
however, were glad enough to devour spavined, far- 
cied, and emaciated steeds during the siege of Paris 
and to eat even worse kinds of flesh.* . . . 

The hippophagic proposition did excite many 
sardonic horse laughs with more than ordinary facial 
spasms followed by no little pharyngeal disturbance, 
when a learned essay on the subject was perused by 
Castanish gourmets. By the by, since the horse is 
not a laughing being owing to absence of the neces- 
sary muscle and nerve elements — a horse laugh can 
in no way be connected with that amiable, friendly 
beast, for it means precisely a hoarse laugh ; horse and 
hoarse having long been used indifferently to express 
the adjectival idea of the laughter of an individual 
who might at the time be suffering from laryngeal 
distress, who could, if he would, laugh hoarsely, or 



* Hippophagy is now common on the continent of Europe, 
and has of late years been reintroduced into our country to sup- 
ply some foreign immigrants of the poorer classes. 



COOKEKY AND GASTRONOMY 57 

who, perchance, should have a naturally hoarse 
voice. . . . 

Herodotus says that the Greeks who entertained 
Xerxes and fifteen thousand men of his army at sup- 
per were all utterly ruined, and to one of them, 
Antipater, such a meal had cost four hundred Attic 
talents — equal to four hundred thousand dollars, 
modern coinage. Ephippus writes that when Alex- 
ander the Great gave an ordinary supper to a few 
friends, sixty or seventy, the banquet cost one hun- 
dred minse — equal to eighteen hundred dollars; 
about twenty-six dollars for each individual. Cleo- 
patra gave Antony an entertainment with all the 
dainties of the time, served on golden dishes inlaid 
with precious stones; all other appurtenances be- 
ing in keeping with her ideas of splendor. When 
Antony expressed astonishment at the magnificence 
displayed, she presented him with all the golden dishes 
and goblets, and invited him to sup on the next day 
when she prepared a much more sumptuous feast 
for him and his officers and friends, again giving them 
all that was on the table * 

Some of the givers of banquets in ancient times 
showed largess by presenting to underlings not only 
the food that was not consumed, but the dishes, 
goblets, and other utensils. But often, particularly 
when common soldiers were among the guests, many 
things, not given, disappeared. This prestidigitative 
tendency is not very uncommon even in the present 

* For one of these feasts a roasted ox was served. 



58 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

time; although the individuals of that ladronic spe- 
cies are not many. Nevertheless cigarettes, cigars, 
sterling forks and spoons do occasionally find their 
way into the recesses of the habiliments of these 
pampered cleptomaniacs. 

Much more time and space would be required, even 
to make only brief allusions to the many banquets 
of old that are described by Athenseus alone, than 
can be devoted to these prolegomenary items, the 
real purpose of which has been to trace the progress 
of gastronomy from the moment of the discovery of 
the effect of fire upon alimentary substances to the 
use of electricity in cooking; from the period when 
man lived on nuts and roots to the instant of the in- 
vention of the last dainty dish; from the time when, 
in imitation of the beast, he drank water directly 
from its source, to the day when he luxuriously sipped 
the most delicate wine from the frailest of Salviati's 
glass. 

Gastronomy as a science does not seem to have 
begun until the time of the Syracusan deipnographic 
poet, Archestratus, who first used the term and 
created a school of gastronomy. His disciples soon 
spread his admirable principles among the elect of 
civilised nations. The masses never could become 
and are never likely to be gastronomes. 

The modern gastronome has often been called 
epicurean as a sort of term of reproach, implying un- 
due luxury and license, or even debauchery. It is, 



COOKEKY AND GASTRONOMY 59 

however, well known to scholars that although Epi- 
curus believed the summum bonum of man's life to be 
pleasure, he evidently meant rational pleasure, for, 
as says one of his biographers, "he was endowed with 
sublime wit and profound judgment, was a master of 
temperance, sobriety, continence, fortitude, and all 
other virtues, and was not a patron of impiety, glut- 
tony, drunkenness, luxury, and all kinds of intem- 
perance, as the common people believed him to be." 
The same apologist in speaking of self immolation in 
case of great bodily suffering, says: Epicurus, " leav- 
ing others to become examples of that rule, with 
admirable patience and invincible magnanimity, en- 
dured the tortures of the stone in the bladder, and 
other most excruciating diseases for many years to- 
gether, and awaited till extreme old age put out the 
taper of his life." ... He surely was not fav- 
ored with euthanasia for which so many mortals 
pray! Epicurus, the friend of Archestratus, was a 
gastronome, a deipnophilist, in the sense that he loved 
to enjoy the good things of this earth, but in modera- 
tion. . . . True gastronomes commit no excesses. 

. . . Gastronomy, deipnophily, should never be 
confounded with gastromania, gastrolatry, deipno- 
lotry, polyphagia, or sybaritism, any more than oino- 
phily and oinosophy need be confounded with poly- 
oinia or oinolatry. . . r 

The debauched glutton is never particular about 
the kind or quality of food and drink ; quantity only, 
if it can be obtained gratis, will satisfy his morbid 



60 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

craving. The typical polyoinic and gastrolatric para- 
site is tersely characterized by the iambic Archilochus 
as follows : 

" Faith but you quaff 
The grape's pure juice to a most merry tune, 
And cram your hungry maw most rav'nously, 
And pay for't — not a doit. But mark me, Sirrah! 
You come not here invited as a friend. 
Your appetite is gross; your god's your belly; 
Your mind, your very soul, incorposed with gluttony, 
Till you have lost all shame." 

Such is Bailey's metrical version of the satyre. 

Some modern bards, too, have recorded their pro- 
test against excess and their advocacy of pleasure in 
moderation; thus Pope has it that 

"Pleasures, or wrong or rightly understood, 
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good." 

And Byron: 

"Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treasure, 
There is no sterner moralist than pleasure." 



Savages take only one meal each day, or when they 
can get it, but nearly all the civilized nations have 
long been in the habit of taking four, five, and even 
six daily refections; two of these in the morning, one 
at about noon, one in the afternoon, one in the even- 
ing, and sometimes a sixth late at night. The first 
breakfast in the rural regions of almost all countries 
is generally at daybreak, the second is taken in the 



COOKERY AND GASTRONOMY 61 

fields or about at eight o'clock, while the principal 
repast is at noon, and the supper at sundown. 

The first morning meal was called acratismos by the 
Greeks and consisted of crusts of bread soaked in pure 
wine. The Roman prandiculum, a very light meal, 
was often taken at an early hour, so is that indulged 
in by tropical and other nations, comprising a small 
cup of black coffee and a biscuit, taken on rising or 
even in bed. A meal taken in haste is by the vulgar 
called a snack, for they snatch any morsel that may 
be at hand and eat it hurriedly. 

The second morning meal was called ariston by the 
Greeks and is the counterpart of the Roman jentacu- 
lum, of the Italian colezione, of the Spanish almuerzo, 
of the French dejeune a la fourchette, of the German 
frilhstiick, and of our breakfast. 

The third or noon meal was the deipnon of rural 
Greeks and the prandiifrn of the Roman people. It 
is the pranzo of the Italians, the refaccion or comida 
de medio dia of the Spanish, the diner of the French 
peasants, the mittagessen of the Germans, and our 
luncheon (the English tiffin) which, a wit says, is 
"a base ingratitude to breakfast and a premeditated 
insult to dinner." 

The fourth or afternoon meal was the esperisma 
of the Greeks, corresponding to the merenda * of the 
Romans and modern Italians, the colacion of the 
Spanish, the gouter or goute of the French, the nach- 

* Merenda, from meridies (Plautus) because it was originally 
a mid-day meal. 



62 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

mittag-essen of the Germans, and our collation or 
five o'clock tea. Collatio was employed by medieval 
monks to denote an assembly for the reading of holy 
writ after the evening meal and was subsequently 
applied to the meal itself. 

The fifth or evening meal was the deipnon of urban 
Greeks, the prandium of the Roman knights, and is 
the desinare of the Italians, the comida of the Spanish, 
the diner of the French, the diner of the Germans, 
and our late dinner. 

The sixth or night meal was also called deipnon* 
or, when a sumptuous feast estiama by the Greeks 
it was the costly epulum, or the plain ccena or cena, 
the cenula~\ (Cicero), the cena brevis (Horace), the 
cena lautissima (Pliny, Jr.), of the Romans, and is 
the cena of the Italians, the cena of the Spanish, the 
souper or soupe of the French, the abendessen or 
nachtessen of the Germans, and our late supper. 

It is remarkable that the Greek language, so rich 
in words, should not have possessed more special 
terms to designate the different and differing repasts. 
The first, acratismos, clearly indicates that the essen- 
tial part of that breakfast is pure wine; but the sec- 
ond, ariston, is applied to the mid-day meal as well 
as to the breakfast; whilst deipnon was used for all 
the meals, but eventually for what is now known as 
the late dinner. The Romans, too, used the one 

* After supper came the symposium or drinking bout and 
orgie. 

f The petits soupers in vogue during and after the reign of 
Louis XIV may have been suggested by the cenula of Cicero. 



COOKERY AND GASTRONOMY 63 

term prandium for all their meals, but finally to denote 
dinner. The cena was at first taken at noon, but after- 
ward at night. The modern dinner from disnare, a 
contraction of disjejunare, to break a fast, is used 
quite as arbitrarily as were the ancient terms, for 
dinner is a refection which may be in the morning, 
at noon, at night, or at any moment that is judged 
necessary to cease fasting. The savage like the wild 
beast eats when he is hungry or when he can obtain 
food; civilised man every four, five or six hours. . . . 

The number and the hour * of meals must vary 
even in the same country to be in accord with the 
occupation or to suit the convenience of different 
classes of a community. The following anecdote 
may serve as an illustration: 

After his first term of service, a legislator from a 
distant part of the country, on returning to his fire- 
side, was closely catechised by his youthful son and 
heir, concerning the climate of the District of Colum- 
bia, the character of the- public buildings of Washing- 
ton City, the state of health of the President and his 
family, and the nature of the habitations and habits 
of the denizens of the Capital. Among the scores of 
queries were the following: At what hour do the 
people dine? At noon. And the M. C? At 1 p. m. 
And the Senators? At 2 p. m. And the Supreme 
Judges? At 3 p. m. And the Cabinet members? 

* One of the alleged reasons for taking the principal meal 
late at night among the ancients was based upon the belief that 
"the moon promotes digestion, since it has putrefying properties; 
digestion depending upon putrefaction." 



64 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

At 5 p. m. And the President? The President — the 
President — oh, he does not dine until the next day. 
Toward the close of the last century a humorist said 
that the Parisians, by dint of retarding their dinner 
hour, will end by dining on the next day * 

These "chestnuts" were very old fifteen hundred 
years ago, only the places and names have often been 
changed as demanded by circumstances. . . . 

The deipnophilist is a lover of good dinners. The 
gastronome is a deipnophilist who has a profound 
knowledge of good cheer. An accomplished gastro- 
nome is a gourmet in its broadest sense, a deipnoinoso- 
phist. Formerly the term gourmet was employed to 
signify exclusively an oinosophist, a wine-taster able 
to pronounce quickly upon the age and quality of 
any vintage, but modern deipnophilists apply the 
word gourmet to him who is well versed in the quali- 
ties of food as well as drink. The French occasionally, 

* In the fifteenth century, the dinner hour, among the French 
nobility, was at eight in the morning. The King, Louis XII, 
afterward changed it to mid-day. The courtiers, however, 
dined at nine or ten a. m., and supped at five or six p. m. This 
custom was observed also during the reign of Francis I, as shown 
by the following verses of an old poet quoted in the Nouvel 
Almanack des Gourmands, 1827: 

" Lever a cinq, diner a neuf , 
Souper a cinq, coucher a neuf, 
Fait vivre d'ans nonante-neuf." 

Another change in meal hours occurred in the reign of Henry 
IV, when dinner was at eleven a. m., as it was also in the time of 
Louis XIV, while under Louis XV the dinner was at two p. m., 
and this observance was continued until the revolution, when 
breakfast was at nine and dinner at four. 



COOKEKY AND GASTRONOMY 65 

instead of gastronome and gastronomie, use the ex- 
pressions gourmand and gourmandise *, but these 
terms are translatable only into gluttony and glutton, 
which are never tolerated by true gourmets. Savages 
are not and cannot be gastronomes, neither can no- 
madic or semi-civilised tribes be gastronomes. Mod- 
ern rustics are not gastronomes. Young urban 
adults are not gastronomes because their minds are 
directed toward other channels of learning and their 
activity demands quantity rather than quality of 
aliments. The science of gastronomy is acquired 
only by mature men after long experience, and im- 
plies a thorough knowledge of the quality of beverages 
and other alimentary substances and of cookery. 
Therefore the true gastronome should be versed in 
natural history, physics, organic chemistry, and 
domestic and political economy, each playing its 
part in private as well as in public feasts. . . . 



* Deipnophilus suggests the term gourmetism — in French 
gourmetise or gourmetisme — to take the place of gourmandise. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN BANQUETING 

"The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of 
mankind than the discovery of a star." 

Although the evolution of alimentary science and 
culinary art was indicated in the preceding essay, it 
seems proper that a few additional notes on the sub- 
ject appear at the beginning of this disquisition, and 
although the definitions of science and art have been 
reduced to two words each, i. e., to know and to do, 
it may be said that alimentary science is the theoreti- 
cal knowledge of the properties and of the prepara- 
tion of 'edible substances, and that culinary art is 
such masterly skill in the treatment and coction and 
service of these substances as to render them pleasing 
in a high degree to the senses of consumers. 

There is good reason to believe that alimentary 
science was evolved from observation of the dietetic 
habits of lower animals. It is likely that, originally, 
man lived on materials similar to those which he saw 
the more docile of the herbivora in the act of eating; 
that incidentally he tasted the raw mushroom and 
liked it, quenching his thirst from the turgid udders of 
a mother ewe; that he further varied his diet by learn- 
ing, from other animals, the uses of divers grasses, 
bulbs, grains, nuts, and sweet fruits; and that he 

66 



ANCIENT AND MODERN BANQUETING 67 

continued to live as a strict vegetarian with dilated 
intestines and a big belly until he became acquainted 
with a few more of his co-denizens of the plains and 
forests, particularly the ichthyophagous and sarcoph- 
agous beasts from whom he learned to devour fish 
and flesh au naturel. This habit was undoubtedly 
transmitted to many generations of men down to the 
South Sea Islanders, who liked short-pig but regarded 
missionary long-pig raw as the greatest of relishes. 
Even at the present time many men prefer to eat 
raw, heated, sun-dried, or smoked rather than cooked 
meats. Such consumption of flesh seems more like a 
perversion of gustation than an evidenec of savagery. 
Savarin gives the following examples: When certain 
sportsmen — who are always provided with salt and 
pepper — happen, in the month of September, to kill 
fat figpeckers, they pluck and season them, and each 
fastens to his hat a bird so prepared and after a 
suitable time eats it; declaring that thus sun-cooked 
it is very much better than fire roasted. A Croatian 
cavalry officer, dining with him in the year 1815, 
said: "There is little need of so much preparation 
as you make here for me. When in the field we feel 
the pangs of hunger, we kill the first beast at hand, 
cut out a piece of its flesh, season it with salt which 
we always have in the sabretasche, place it under the 
saddle of the horse, mount, gallop a while, and then, 
with this meat, regale ourselves like princes." 

The facetious Samuel Butler told of the common 
diet of Huns in these few lines : 



68 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

" And though his countrymen the Huns, 
Did stew their meat between their bums 
And th' horses' backs o'er which they straddle, 
And every man ate up his saddle." * 

Assuming this theory to be correct, it follows 
that the earliest cooks were roasters. Such per- 
haps were the thoughts of Savarin when he para- 
phrased Cicero's saying, " Nascimur poetce, fimus 
oratores," we are born poets, we become orators, into 
"we become cooks but are born roasters." The too 
frequent realisation of the fact that many good cooks 
are bad roasters and vice versa, has long been a cause 
of great vexation of spirit and of rank offense to the 
gustation of true gourmets whose gorges rise in re- 
bellion against over-done roasts and ill- concocted 
and badly served aliments. 

It is clear that man long remained in ignorance of 
the art of cookery, whose evolution unquestionably 
was from the accidental discovery of the burning 
property of fire; the roasting or, per (mis) chance, the 
carbonisation of flesh exposed to the action of great 
heat having been one of the first effects observed. 

It can scarcely be told how long man continued to 
live on raw food, on roasts and grills, or on parboiled 
meats before he learned how to make soups and 
stews. The cooking of food among the early Greeks 
was generally the office of slaves, but on special oc- 
casions the master gave particular attention to the 
preparation and service of the meats. A fair example 

* Hudibras, Part I, Canto ii, lines 275-278. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN BANQUETING 69 

is found in the Iliad where it is related that, a great 
fire having been kindled, Achilles himself made ready 
and roasted the spitted meats and carved and served 
them to his Trojan guests, whilst Patrocles distributed 
the bread. 

The boiling of food does not appear to have become 
a part of cookery until the action of hot water upon 
animal and vegetable substances was revealed, in all 
likelihood, by the accidental fall of an animal or of 
a delicate plant into the pool of some hot spring. It 
was probably after observing a marked change in 
the appearance, consistence, and taste of the scalded 
animal or plant that man used the artifice of filling a 
gourd with water and placing it on hot embers to 
secure full ebullition. But the speedy destruction of 
the inflammable gourd must naturally have induced 
that embryonic chef de cuisine to coat the next gourd- 
ish utensil with plastic clay and eventually to con- 
struct out of pure clay all the vessels designed for 
this sort of cookery. From these primitive experi- 
ments probably was evolved the artistic pottery 
which ornaments the modern palaces. The Hindoos 
of past ages were such lovers of boiled aliments that 
they styled their cooks soup makers, but this sort of 
cooking was rare amongst other nations notwith- 
standing these very early beginnings and the biblical 
record of the flesh pots of Egypt, and of self denying 
Jacob's puree of lentils. Speaking of pottages it 
may be interesting to note the result of the researches 
of the erudite hellenist Madame Dacier who said that 



70 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

she had not been able to find the slightest reference 
to the boiling of meat in any of the Homeric writing. 
This view, however, has been contested by the asser- 
tion that there is, in these Homeric compositions, very 
distinct reference to the boiling of food. . . . 

It is well known that the higher development of 
culinary art arose in Persia, and that it was from the 
luxurious Persians that the Greeks got their best 
notions of cookery and of banqueting which they im- 
parted to the Romans who soon disseminated the 
newly acquired information throughout their posses- 
sions. But compared to modern banquets in the 
character of the food, its preparation, and its service, 
and in the quality and quantity of the wines, the best 
of the Grecian and Roman feasts were crude, coarse, 
vulgarly profuse, and needlessly extravagant; almost 
always ending in shameless debauchery. These or- 
gies were long indulged by gluttonous revellers despite 
the good example given by Mithacus, Numenius, 
Hegemon, Philoxenus, Acticles, Tyndaricus, and, in 
the time of Pericles, by Archestratus — author of the 
lost poem on gastronomy and the art of giving a ban- 
quet — who had visited many distant parts and coun- 
tries in quest of information relating to alimentary 
science and culinary art. . . . 

Roman, like Grecian luxury, the result of conquest, 
was carried to the greatest excess among the wealthy. 
It was in the time of Sulla that Lucullus and Hor- 



ANCIENT AlSiD MODERN BANQUETING 71 

tensius became so noted for their extravagant feasts 
in which was displayed the most reckless expenditure 
of ill gotten sesterces; two of the most costly dishes 
consisting one of the brains of five hundred peacocks, 
the other of the tongues of as many nightingales. 
Cleopatra's sentimental pearl cocktail though no 
more ridiculous in extravagance than the brain and 
tongue ragouts, is offset in absurdity by the hundred 
pound note eaten in a sandwich by a lady out of con- 
tempt for an elderly adorer who had laid the note on 
her dressing table 

It was early in the first century that Apicius squan- 
dered the equivalent of five millions of our dollars for 
the maintenance of his kitchen and finally poisoned 
himself lest he starve to death on a remaining million. 
Martial tells in a few words the story of that deluded 
Roman's profligacy and death: 

"You had spent, Apicius, sixty millions of sesterces 
on your belly, but you had still left a loose ten millions. 
In despair at such a reduction, as if you were con- 
demned to endure hunger and thirst, you took, as a 
last draught, a dose of poison. No greater proof 
of your gluttony than this, Apicius, was ever given by 
you." 

Caligula, in his short reign, is said to have been as 
great a spendthrift as his predecessors and to have 
expended a sum equal to fifty thousand dollars for a 
single banquet. In the beginning of the third cen- 
tury the deboshed guzzler Heliogabolus gave a supper 
which cost one hundred thousand dollars. . . . 



72 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

A mixture of Roman civilisation and barbaric pro- 
fusion, says Baudrillart, signalises the feasts during 
the early centuries of the middle ages. Sidonius 
Apollinaris, speaking of the repasts of Theodoric II, 
King of the Visigoths, affirms that in those feasts there 
was a union of Greek elegance and Gallic abundance. 
In the ninth century this barbaric prodigality was 
rife among the Franks. The feudal Barons were 
proverbially hospitable even to those whom they op- 
pressed. In their castles were vast kitchens where 
enormous joints were roasted. Their cellars were well 
garnished with casks of wine and beer, and their 
drinking vessels were colossal. In the twelfth cen- 
tury, further says Baudrillart, extravagance was so 
great that the expenditure incurred to celebrate the 
nuptials of Eleanore and Louis le jeune nearly ex- 
hausted the public treasury and, in 1243, at the mar- 
riage banquet of Cincia, daughter of Raymond, 
Comte de Provence, to Richard of Cornwall, brother 
of Henry III of England, thirty thousand dishes were 
served ■ 

With few exceptions, the grossest feeding, even 
among the wealthy classes, continued in vogue down 
to the sixteenth century when dainty good cheer 
was introduced at Rome where some of the elect of 
nearly all civilised nations were aggregated. Each 
ambassador to the Papal Court took with him his 
chief cook who soon vied with others to give his mas- 
ter's guests the best and most savory of dinners with 



ANCIENT AND MODERN BANQUETING 73 

libations of the choicest wines of his country. By- 
exchange of views and cookery receipts on the part of 
the men with the masters' sanction, it was not long 
before the official dinners consisted of the best dishes 
of all the countries represented in the Eternal City 
whose high clerics were already noted as lovers of 

delicate aliments.* 

From Rome, polyethnic good cheer passed into 
France, where it made a beginning in the time of 
Catherine of Medicis and of Henry IV, but it was not 
until the reign of Louis XIV f and particularly of 
Louis XV that cookery and gastronomic nomenclature 
attained great perfection, ever since which Paris has 
been acknowledged the gastronomic center of the 
world. The names given by the French to many 
culinary utensils, to divers preparations of aliments 
and to their service were adopted by other nations 
and not a few of them are now in use. Even the bill 
of fare, which in France was termed carte, became 
menu, and this word was soon taken up at nearly all 
pretentious English and American hostelries, and the 
majority of comestibles catalogued in bills of particu- 
lars of the fare took French names. It may be of in- 

* Each country had and still has its favorite drink and dish 
which are generally palatable. This is so well known by travel- 
lers that, almost invariably, on arriving in a town not before 
visited, they call for the wine and dish of the country and are 
seldom disappointed. 

f Louis XIV was a large feeder. He has been known to eat 
at a single meal, four plates of different soups, a whole pheasant, 
a partridge, a copious plate of salad, some roast mutton, two 
good sized slices of ham, a fair share of pastry, and then fruit and 
preserves. He was particularly fond of hard boiled eggs. 



74 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

terest to inquire into the reason or rather unreason 
for the employment of the term menu which, origi- 
nally, was used solely as an adjective, as menus 
plaisirs, etc., but perverted into a substantive for a 
kitchen term applied to what are now called giblets 
and other bits of fowl sold for stews — une fricassee de 
menus. The word was afterward used by intendents 
to designate the bill of fare — u le menu d'un repas, 
c'est le detail de ce qui le compose." In some restau- 
rants, the word carte is still used to mean a list, on a 
sheet of cardboard, indicating the name and price of 
each article of food that the restaurateur is ready to 
supply. Carte du jour is a special bill of fare. Carte 
a payer is no longer in use and is replaced by the 
shorter term V addition. 

"An honest Londoner, being presented at a Paris- 
ian restaurant with a bill of fare containing one hun- 
dred and ninety dishes, returned it to the waiter, 
saying he had made a mistake and brought him a bill 
of lading." (Wadd) 



The celebrity of the French cuisine is due in great 
part to the restaurateurs, the first of whom opened 
his restaurant in Paris near the close of the third 
quarter of the eighteenth century. In our country 
the most noted restaurateurs until a score of years 
ago were French, Swiss, and Italian, and many of 
their native pupils have since attained the highest 
rank as caterers to the refined taste of members of 



ANCIENT AND MODERN BANQUETING 75 

the cultured classes at their homes or clubs where the 
best cooks are employed 

Good cookery in France was interrupted by the 
Revolution, but from the beginning of the nineteenth 
century the greatest impulse was given to scientific 
cookery and rational gastronomy, fostered by Ber- 
choux's admirable poem La Gastronomic, published 
in the year 1800, and by Comet's clever satiric poem 
bearing the title of L'Art de diner en ville (1810), but 
more particularly by the annual publication of 
Grimod de la Reyniere's Almanack des, Gourmands, 
which first appeared in 1804, and by Anselme Brillat- 
Savarin's Physiologie du'Gout, the greatest work ever 
penned on the subject, and Delille's charming verses 
on coffee, beginning with: 

" II est une liqueur au poete bien chere, 
Qui manquait a Virgile et qu'adorait Voltaire: 
C'est toi, divin caf6, dont l'aimable liqueur, 
Sans alterer la tete, epanouit la coeur!" 

Among the eminent lovers of good cheer in those 
times were Cambaceres, the prime minister of Bona- 
parte and host at all the official banquets, de Cussy, 
Doctor Castaldy, of the famous jury degustateur, 
Rossini, the operatic composer, Camerani, noted for 
his invention of a delicious pottage, Louis XVIII, 
the Due d'Escars, and many other bons-vivants who 
subscribed to Savarin's aphorism: "The animals 
feed, man eats, the man of wits alone knows how to 



76 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

eat," and believed that the true art of dining has for 
its object not merely the satisfaction of hunger but, 
through moderation, the assurance of health as well 
as the gratification of the senses 

After the occupation of Paris in 1814 and 1815 by 
the Allies, many of the best cooks followed their 
"friends the enemies" and so the capital was tem- 
porarily bereft of the services of those culinary artists; 
and lovers of good cheer deplored their absence, but 
it was not long before some of them returned, or others 
sprang up to fill the places of the deserters. The 
emigration of so many French cooks to England gave 
that country — after France — supremacy in good 
cheer, but cookery and gastronomy did not really 
decline in France, as the English imagined. Among 
the new epicures in England who began to forsake 
venison and roast beef for dainty French dishes pre- 
pared by the imported chefs, were King George IV, 
the Duke of York, the Duke of Beaufort, the Duke of 
Montrose, Lord Southampton, Lord Chesterfield, 
Lord Wilton, Lord Brougham, the Marquis of Hert- 
ford, Sir William Stanley, Sir William Curtis, and 
others of the wealthy classes, nearly all of whom gave 
banquets at which were present from ten to thirty 
guests and often greater numbers. 

The ancients had at their feasts from five to five 
hundred guests, except of course in the case of military 
banquets wherein many thousands were regaled. 
Weddings were frequent occasions among the opulent 



ANCIENT AND MODERN BANQUETING 77 

for the most lavish display of rich ornaments besides 
a great profusion of edibles and wines, At the mar- 
riage banquet of Caranus the Macedonian, twenty 
guests were entertained after a style which exceeded 
all the extravagance of the time ; carrying away with 
them quantities of provisions, golden vessels and other 
precious gifts. . . . The wisdom of choosing a 
few congenial guests for the rational enjoyment of a 
delicate repast was urged by Archestratus, as shown 
in the following extract from the poem of that great 
epicurean, rendered into English verse by Disraeli: 

"I write these precepts for immortal Greece, 
That round a table delicately spread, 
Or three, or four, may sit in choice repast, 
Or five at most. Who otherwise shall dine 
Are like a troop marauding for their prey." 

Now, for informal repasts, with intimate friends, 
to test some particular dish or wine, the diners are 
few, not exceeding four — the partie carree 

Long custom among civilised nations has decreed 
that the number of persons at a dining table should 
not exceed twelve, which permits general conversa- 
tion, at least during the first hour of the feast. With 
the aid of the round table, however, twenty diners are 
made comfortable in every particular, notwithstand- 
ing Varro's saying that the guests should ordinarily 
be of the number of the graces and never exceed that 
of the muses. The Romans usually entertained nine 



78 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

guests, three on each of their three couches; hence the 
name triclinium given to the dining room. Varro's 
adage was repeated by de Cussy and other modern 
writers. 

With our present facilities, even at our homes, it is 
not difficult to provide for the comfort of twenty-five 
guests at dinner. The writer had the pleasure, on 
many occasions, to dine at the home of a good friend 
who, with his charming wife, frequently entertained 
their sixteen grown children at dinner and often had 
five or six guests besides. It is scarcely necessary 
to say that no pains were spared in the choice 
of the comestibles or in the ensurance of their ex- 
cellence and service, and in the attention given to 
the wines. This was rendered easily practicable by 
a well-filled exchequer which permitted the best uses 
of modern appliances and conveniences with a lesser 
number of servants than in the olden time. . . . 

It now only remains to give an example of feasting 
in the latter part of the nineteenth century, which 
will be done in the next paper. 



VI 

A CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER 
" Dis-moi ce que tu mange, je te dirai ce que tu es." 

This collop is intended as an example of the present 
style of feasting on truly sound principles, among 
persons of refinement, in marked contrast to the 
banquets of ancient times, and to those orgies of 
modern Trimalchian wights endowed with more 
wealth and vulgarity than mind and gentility. It 
is also suggestive of the progress of gastronomy in 
the nineteenth century, and of moderation as essen- 
tial to the real pleasure of eating and drinking and 
to the veritable pleasure of the table. 

Long custom having decreed that the Christmas 
dinner be eaten in the privacy of the family circle, 
this particular dinner had to be given on the eve of 
Christmas, that there might be no delay in the cele- 
bration of the advent of an old college friend just 
returned from his travels in foreign lands. 

The host wrote to him as follows : 

Nea Kastana, December 

Dear Ned — The note announcing your arrival filled me with 
joy and prompted me to ask you to await my coming to take 
you to luncheon at our Club where I shall give directions for the 
preparation of a feast in honor of your safe return among your 

79 



80 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

comrades, who will be delighted to welcome you at dinner on 
Saturday the eve of Christmas. I propose, my precious poetic 
pandit, a polymathic assembly of some of our college mates, to 
consist of Arthur, the renowned delineator of the good, the 
beautiful, and the true on canvas; of honey-tongued William the 
eminent expounder of the law; of Edward, the distinguished 
designer of palatial edifices and grand monuments; of George, 
who builds gigantic bridges and portrays cyclopean construc- 
tions; of Robert, the exact man of numbers, whose nocturnal 
habits lead him to star-gazing; of Frederick, whose poems 
are of the living, but mute and inanimate productions of the 
soil; of Richard, the lover of animal life, who talks so much of, 
and so kindly to, the beasts of creation; of Charles, the beloved 
healer of men; of Henry, the patient analyst of all natural and 
artificial products; and of Samuel, who, like the miser, almost 
worships the wonderful things of the mineral kingdom. 

Half an hour after you shall have received this you may ex- 
pect to see and embrace your much attached and devoted 
friend, Albert X 

Each person referred to in Albert's letter received 
a note of invitation couched in language adapted to 
his individuality and expressing with cordiality the 
request to meet an old friend at dinner. The trans- 
cription of only one of these missives will be sufficient. 

Nea Kastana, Monday 

Dear Arthur — The lad who, after study hours, always found 
time to scribble verses, has attained great distinction as a poet 
and is about to be readmitted to our fraternal fold. It is there- 
fore fit that we celebrate with becoming circumstance the return 
of the penitent prodigal who had deserted us a score of years 
ago. On Saturday, Christmas eve, at seven o'clock, will you do 
me the great pleasure to dine at the Club with us and certain 
congenial spirits with whom we were wont to consort in bygone 
days and who are still dear to us? 

Your faithful and affectionate friend, 

Albert X 



A CHEISTMAS EVE DUSTNEB 81 

Ten minutes before the appointed time the host 
and the poet arrived in the reception room adjoining 
the spacious, well- decorated and electrically lighted 
refectory, and five minutes afterward all the other 
guests were at hand to exchange salutations and to 
give expression of the warmest welcome to the guest 
of honor. No propoma such as vermuth, embittered 
sherry, or cocktail was served, because the ante- 
prandium habit of such drinking had long ago been 
decreed a gastronomic heresy and fatal stroke to 
gustation and digestion by the Fraternity in solemn 
conclave. On the stroke of seven the company was 
comfortably seated at an ample round table whose 
snow white cloth was sparsely strewn with green leaves 
and fragrant flowers, and upon which were a few 
small shallow dishes containing crisp hors-d'oeuvres. 
There were no candelabra or other objects likely to 
obstruct the view of opposite diners. The drinking 
vessels were of the clearest crystal, the plates simply 
but richly decorated, and the bright silver implements 
of the highest artistic design. These and all the other 
needful accessories served to charm vision and pro- 
mote appetite. The refection, though simple, con- 
sisted of the daintiest edibles with wines of corres- 
ponding excellence; the details of the fare being given 
on cards placed before the diners 

After the slow degustation of a few middle sized 
plump, succulent mollusks, a libation of the delicious 
wine of La Tour Blanche was proposed in hearty 
welcome of the Fraternity's poet who responded in 



82 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

touching accents of affection; ending with the charm- 
ing Odyssean couplet: 

" Here let us feast, and to the feast be join'd 
Discourse, the sweeter banquet of the mind," 

just in time for the service of a clear green turtle 
soup. I see, he said, by the appearance and flavor 
of this delicious pottage, that I shall have to beg 
leave to talk of, and ask questions about, our good 
cheer, and trust it may be allowable among old 
friends. 

Yes, said the host, you may talk of the food 
and of whatever else you will favor us with. Our 
motto for this festive occasion shall be, "ratio et 
oratio." . . . 

Until the discovery of this new world, resumed 
the poet, the transatlantic gourmets could never 
have had the faintest idea of such a soup as we have 
sipped with so much pleasure, or else volumes would 
have been written on the many uses to be made of 
that amphibian creature who so instinctively selected 
for its habitat the tropical waters and pebbly beaches 
of our blessed hemisphere. Had the Vikings visited 
our southern shores a thousand years ago, they 
surely would have prevented us in, and robbed us of 
the glory of the invention of the dainty clear 
soup 

Since, however, the Spaniards were the first ex- 
plorers to enjoy green turtle stews, said the law-giver, 



A CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER 83 

let us quaff a cup of Amontillado in memory of the 
old soldier of the low countries, Pedro Ximenes, to 
whom we owe the excellence of this wine which the 
Rhenish vines its ancestors could never have yielded 
in their cold and bleak home. Emigration seems 
sometimes as beneficial to vegetable as it so often is 
to animal life. No better illustration could be given 
than in this case of the transplantation by Ximenes 
of these vines which originally produced a detestably 
sour wine, and which throve so well in the warm, 
genial climate and soil of southwestern Spain where 
their fermented juice gave the mellow, nutty Xeres so 
agreeable to the cultivated palate 

The vegetable kingdom, said the phytophilist, has 
afforded man great enjoyment through the vine, but 
it has done much more by giving him pleasant shelter 
and many luxuries. The history of art and architec- 
ture may well begin with this same vegetable king- 
dom, for, how wonderful is the architecture of the 
tree that flowers and fructifies, feeds, drinks, and is 
permeated by its nutrient current through a system 
of minute channels! How delightful and profitable 
the contemplation of the development of the shrub, 
the vine, the grasses, and the many other plants, of 
their fertilisation by insects; of the carnivorous 
plants; and of even more primitive organisms! . . 

The engineer and architect concurred in all that 
was said in favor of the vegetable kingdom, since from 



84 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

that source so much information is derived relating 
principally to solidity, tension, form, curves, etc., 
in their adaptation to artificial constructions of many 
kinds, as well as to ornamental art. . . . 

Only think, said the artist, of the infinite tints of 
the flowers as suggestive of artificial coloring! 

Are there not, said the zoophilist, striking exam- 
ples, suggestive of house building, in the mollusks and 
crustaceans, and in the turtle who, besides, is endowed 
with an excellent natatory and fair ambulatory appa- 
ratus so well adapted to his amphibious existence? 
May not observation of the fishes of the sea have 
suggested ship building, notably the mollusk nau- 
tilus? May not the sight of some molluscan shell 
have suggested the form of the pyramids? Is there 
not also in the armadillo's armored castle a sugges- 
tion of the coat of mail and even of the fortifica- 
tion? 

Ye who speak so well of the glory of the vegetable 
and animal kingdoms should not slight the mineral 
without which they could not exist, said the metal- 
losophist. Could the great pyramids of Egypt have 
been built to last so long were it not for the mineral 
kingdom which came first in the order of creation? 
Have not mountains and rocks suggested form, 
solidity, and grandeur? May not the idea of the arch 
have arisen from man's contemplation of natural 
bridges, and that of church spires and other towers 
from the lofty monoliths standing sentinel like in the 
mountainous regions of many countries? Are there 



A CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER 85 

not many stony and metallic monuments, constructed 
by man, in which the vegetable kingdom did not come 
in aid even by way of scaffolding? Do not the prin- 
cipal materials of many tools and other objects used 
in constructions belong to the mineral kingdom? 
Are not many rich mineral colorings employed in the 
arts? Whence come the gold and silver used in pay- 
ment for labor? There surely would be no vegetable 
or animal kingdom without water and air, the last 
two minerals to appear on this earth; and man could 
not be without water which makes up about seventy 
per centum of his constituent parts, as you may 
be told by our eminent brethren the chemist and 
biologist 

Ah! said the poet, it seems to me that the man 
of earth has prevailed only so far as relates to the 
order of appearance of his kingdom which, however, 
was not completed until the vegetable came in to pro- 
duce coal, and the animal to make chalk. The vege- 
table kingdom required the aid of both the mineral 
and animal for its completion, and both mineral and 
vegetable are essential to the perfection of the animal. 
Each has its special office which it cannot perform 
without the help of the other two; such interdepen- 
dence being consequent upon their identical origin. 
Our star-gazer will tell you that all things in the uni- 
verse have a common source in the atoms of matter 
which is one; the properties of individual entities 
depending on the infinite combinations and arrange- 



86 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

ments of these atoms. However all this may be, we 
are agreed that the true story of nature even as told 
in these times is the grandest of epics and that the 
descriptions of its phenomena form so many cantos 
in the sublime poem! 

The fish was a superb specimen of the sparus ovis 
(sheepshead) boiled and served with a delicious coulis 
of prawns and granulated white potatoes. The head 
was reserved for the biologist who believed that even 
sheepsheads- are subject to the exquisitely painful 
affection styled the toothache, and said that he had 
reached this conclusion by often finding carious teeth 
in this fish's jaws, which he had been in the habit of 
preserving and leisurely examining after having en- 
joyed the soft parts 

The greedy monster lives on mollusks, principally 
clams and mussels, said the zoologist, and doubtless 
the hard shells often injure his teeth. This probably 
accounts for their frequent carious condition and the 
consequent toothache 

The head is the most delicate part of the fish 
which, said the biologist, is best boiled with three 
or four clams to every pound of fish — the clams are 
not to be served. We are eating sheepshead very 
late in the year for they begin to migrate in the latter 
part of September, but the ichthyopoles have been 
following them in their onward course for the past 
three months and still bring a few to market. . , 



A CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER 87 

I have never tasted such a fish on the other side 
of the Atlantic, nor have I ever heard it named in 
England, France, Spain, or Italy, said the artist, 
and, in my belief, it is equal, if not superior to the 
turbot 

The sargus, so much prized by the Greeks, said 
the zoosophist, although placed in the same family, 
does not at all correspond to our sheepshead, for, this 
sargus was said to be like a mullet to none of the 
species of which the American fish in question bears 
the slightest outward resemblance. ..'... 

Perhaps, interposed the barrister, our inter- 
preter of the heavenly constellations will tell us what 
particular kind of fish was intended to be repre- 
sented in the zodiacal sign of pisces 

The Dutch, answered the emule of Arago, would 
insist that they should be herrings, the Normands, 
that soles have the first right, the Italians, turbots; 
but we are sure that they should be sheepshead which 
are the best and handsomest of all the finny tribe. 

I think, said the chemist, that a draught of 
this unequalled wine of Montrachet would serve well 
as an irrigator of the parched throats of the learned 
brethren who, in their praises of the sparus ovis, seem 
to have delayed too long the imbibition of the very 
wine best suited to the gastric coction of this most 
delicate morsel 



88 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Do first munch an olive as a preparation to the 
full enjoyment of this electronoid juice of the luscious 
margarodic berries of Gaul, said the metallosophist. 

Yes, said the host, or a bit of this crisp celery, 
or a few parched almonds, either of which, having the 
desired effect, may suit the proclivities of some of the 
fraternity. 

Well, my dear Albert, you are determined to give 
us new sensations even with your entrees, for this is, 
to me, a novel way to dress, cook, and serve the 
thymic body of the lamb, and this special mode of 
preparation is well worthy to be styled sweet bread. 
The appearance of the shallow concave bit of pastry 
in which each portion is served gladdens the eye and 
invites appetite, whilst the delicate taste of the con- 
tents is more than enticing to the imbibition of your 
exceptionally good wine 

To a Gasterean disciple who, for so many years, 
has not breathed the pure, invigorating air of this 
land of liberty without licence, nor tasted our whole- 
some, juicy, tender meat, it was thought that a fillet 
of blue-grass fed beef would be to you next to a new 
gastronomic sensation, said the host. . . . Here 
it is, garnished with fresh mushrooms and accom- 
panied by the succulent vegetables we have all so 
greatly enjoyed at this club 



A CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER $9 

0! ye illustrious gourmets, said the barrister, 
forget not the Grand Master's thirteenth aphorism 
in effect that to drink a single wine throughout din- 
ner is a heresy, for it soon saturates the tongue and, 
after the third glass, even the best wine fails to 
give pleasure and only rouses the obtusest gustative 
sensation 

Hence, said the artist, the sudden appearance of 
the ruby juice of the famous grapes of Chateau Mar- 
gaux, of precisely the right age and warmth for your 
appreciative palates, and a sure antidote for any 
deleterious ptomain that may be lurking in the mush- 
rooms, although our profound trio, the analyst, the 
healer of men, and the scrutiniser of all vegetable 
organisms affirm that the particular agaricin of these 
individual fungi is absolutely innocuous, still it is 
not impossible that a few poisonous intruders may 
have escaped detection, therefore, as a pleasant pre- 
caution, I hear them say, "Take thy wine." . . . 

The entremets which has just been served is of 
rare excellence, said the poet, and gives me a deli- 
cious sensation. It is the first time I have eaten 
celery prepared after this style. The very dark 
brown, almost black sauce in which it is immersed, 
is truly the work of an able culinary artist. 

Our chef, said the host, is very fond of giving 
us such surprises. The sauce is of his own invention, 
as is the mode of treatment of the celery. . . , 



90 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

The true chef, said the analyst, takes great pride 
in his profession and is a master in the science and 
art of alimentary chemistry 

We abolished in our feasts all entremets sucres, 
such as sorbets, etc., except in summer, ever since our 
old master so erudite in physic, philosophy and deip- 
nosophy, now so full of years, experiences, and anec- 
dotes, spoke so much against taking sweets between 
courses at dinner. It is needless to rehearse his 
humorous but sound arguments against these entre- 
mets sucres, by which we were so well convinced. 
But he was fond of the coup du milieu. Some of you 
may remember also how much he decried tobacco 
smoking after the sorbet as a vile foreign usage which 
we should never adopt, for, he said, it so blunts the 
sensitiveness of the gustatory nerve filaments as to 
impede all enjoyment of the dainties which are to 
follow. Therefore we are not going to ask you to 
smoke at this moment. However, the fraternity has 
consented, on your account, to depart from our rule 
and give you this moderately sweet entremets whose 
principal constituent ingredient is the pulp of the 
pomelo, known as grape fruit. It is prepared by 
isolating the pulp of the fruit and adding not more 
than a dessertspoonful of maraschino; the whole 
being placed in little crystal cups and suitably iced. 

Your genius, dear Albert, for taking advantage of 
the first as of the last opportunity of enjoying the 
dainties of the time, and your aptitude for their right 



A CHRISTMAS EVE DIN NEB 91 

selection are almost as boundless as your broad 
studies of things that were, even before history or 
the advent of man. It seems likely that, one of these 
days, you will discover some petrified ragout contain- 
ing the bones of unknown birds and mammals to 
which, doubtless, will be given a name even longer 
than that of the fricassee mentioned by Aristophanes 
in his "Ecclesiazusae." Your excellent fish was the 
last of the season, your new entrees were of the high- 
est order of excellence, your delicious entremets sucre 
new to me, and now I see a seasonable bird, also new 
to me, that promises marvels, for the flesh of the 
ruddy duck, as I now taste it, gives to my gustation 
a sensation of pleasure never before enjoyed. Verily it 
needs no other accompaniment than the simple fried 
hominy so nicely served with each portion, and I 
believe that any sweet jelly would be marring to its 

delicate flavor 

No wine, my dear friend, is more suitable to this 
course of our dinner than that of Madeira, said the 
host, therefore, let us drain a tiny cup of the first 
good vintage of 1864 to the frequent degustation of 
the ruddy duck 

A plain lettuce salad was served with Camembert 
and Gorgonzola cheeses after the birds. 

I imagine, said the poet, from the diminutive 
portions of the lettuce, that you have taken Horace's 
wise hint: 

"Lactuca innatat acri 
Post vinum stomacho," 



92 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

and that you have added the cheese to ensure the 
salad's digestion 

Oh! thou megalornithosophist, said the botanist, 
do tell our wayfaring brother all about the great 
gastronomic discovery of the ruddy duck made during 
his foreign peregrinations. 

This delicate little bird, said the zoosophist, 
appears in the market early in November, and its 
natural history name is erismatura rubida. Although 
known and described, by Wilson, as early as 1814, 
very little notice was taken of it by sportsmen until 
about fifteen years ago, partly on account of its small 
size which is about that of our teal. It is vulgarly 
called partridge-duck owing to its short wings and 
mode of flight. The ruddy part of the name needs no 
comment. It is admitted to the aristocratic nessaic 
circle of red-heads and canvas-backs, and picnics with 
them as a dwarfish poor relation and in the capacity 
of purveyor for, being a bold diver, it contributes 
largely to the feast of those of its elegant cousins who 
are not gifted with a genius for plunging to the depths 
of the Chesapeakean estuaries and uprooting the deli- 
cate Vallisneria spiralis commonly known as wild 
celery from which these three species of ducks derive 
their exquisite flavor. It is said that an aristocratic 
amphibian, the terrapin, also feeds on the roots of 
the Vallisneria. This duck was not found in our 
markets nor was its excellence known to us until the 
year 1890, when one of the fraternity told us that in 



A CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER 93 

November of that year he had found several ruddy 
ducks among the canvas-backs and red-heads which 
he had shot on the Chesapeake and that, being in 
experimental mood, he ordered one of the smallest 
ducks to be broiled for breakfast and liked it so well 
that he had another roasted for dinner and thought it 
quite as rich in flavor as the red-head. He afterward 
learned that other sportsmen had already made the 
same experiment with like result. Epicures now 
pronounce this bird equal in taste to its two popular 
cousins. 

There are many other delicacies in store for you, 
dear absentee, said the artist, that have been dis- 
covered during the score of years since your desertion, 
and if you had your deserts you would have no dessert, 
but you will not be deserted by the deserving fra- 
ternity nor deprived of the pleasure of enjoying the 
coming delicious dessert which will deserve the keenest 
attention after the disservice of all appurtenances to 
the prior services 

Plum pudding, said the host, is commonly the 
chief part of the dessert at this time of the year, but 
since the ordinary plum pudding would be rather 
heavy and out of keeping with our light dinner, I 
have provided a plum pudding glace which doubtless 
you have tasted in foreign parts and which, as you 
know, is of easier digestion than the rich hot pudding 
of old. It is accompanied with a few dishes of petiis 
fours, some of which may remind you of the sweet 
cheese cakes anciently so much in esteem at Syracuse 



94 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

and Athens. With these sweets, let us drink to the 
new-found brother the wine that, by virtue of its 
diffusibility, soon wakens the dormant spirit of humor 
at this period of a refection 

I am fully in accord with the French, said the 
poet, that champagne wine should be drunk last, 
and that it should be moderately sweet. Dry spark- 
ling wines are not agreeable to me. Our people who 
use dry champagne generally drink it early in the 
dinner, but this is a heresy; at least, it does not 
accord with Savarin's twelfth aphorism to the effect 
that the order of beverages should be from the mildest 
to the most diffusible, strong, and highly flavored. 

After the fruit and the service of coffee infusion, 
liqueurs, and cigars, the special orations began. 

The host called upon each in turn, beginning with 
the guest of honor who had the privilege of delivering 
a second oration at the close of the feast. The 
speeches were of things too many to mention, but of 
such a character as was expected from these men of 
true refinement and high culture. At eleven of the 
clock the assembly adjourned and each returned to 
his home to slumber peacefully and dream of the joys 
of the evening so well spent with the companions of 
his youth. 



VII 

BEVERAGES 
" Stay me with flagons." 

All men whose potations are mild, few and so un- 
like those of the acratopotic Scythians and Thracians 
of old, will hail with satisfaction the protests herein 
made against hard drinking, and the preachments in 
favor of moderation. The tendency of the thought- 
less to the occasional intemperate use of wholesome 
beverages may be due to the fact that man is ushered 
into the world not with hunger, but with thirst, 
which is manifested as soon as he has filled his lungs 
with air. At his birth the gigantic infant Gargantua 
shouted stentoriously some drink, some drink, 
SOME DRINK. Pantagruel, his son, a chip of the 
old block, afterward King of Dipsodes, was born at a 
time of great drought and hence was harassed by an 
insatiable thirst. His name Panta, from the Greek, 
meaning entirely, and gruel, from the Hagarenic 
tongue, signifying dry — so sayeth the illustrious 
etymonist, Alcofribas Nasier 

The first cry of every new-born babe is to make 
known its thirst, and the first word the child learns to 
express a need is "dink." Therefore it is meet that 
liquid take precedence over solid aliments in all 

95 



96 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

special dissertations on gastronomy. The beverages 
used by man are: 1, water, 2, milk, 3, oil, 4, the 
juices of fruits and sap of trees, 5, fermented liquors, 
6, distilled liquors, 7, tea infusion, 8, coffee infusion, 
9, chocolate and other broths. Blood is not included 
in this list because it is only very exceptionally used 
as a beverage. It is said, however, that the Huns 
were in the habit of drinking the blood of their horses, 
and that the Ostjaks of the Obi valley were very fond 
of reindeer and bear blood, which they drank while 
still warm. The fresh and warm blood of the ox is 
now drunk by a few misguided invalids who go to 
slaughter houses for the purpose. The blood of hu- 
man victims was once drunk by some cannibals and 
savage warriors. 

I. WATER. 

What is water? It is melted ice, says the Alaskan. 
It is liquefied snow, says the Alpan. It is the home of 
the finny tribe, says the fisherman. It is for navi- 
gation, says the mariner. It is the mother of steam, 
says the engine-driver. It is the father of mortar, 
says the mason. It is the only thing in which to boil 
potatoes, says Bridget. It is the great cleanser of 
foul linen, says the laundress. It is the best wash for 
dirty bottles, says Tom. It is to help grind my grain, 
says the miller. It is to give me large crops, says the 
farmer. It is to dilute milk, says the dairyman. 
It is a powerful extinguisher, says the fireman. It 



BEVERAGES 97 

is to dissolve sophisticating agents, says the publican. 
It is to allay thirst after a drinking bout, says the 
sot. It is Adam's ale, the most nutritious of all foods, 
says the son of temperance. It is a sovereign remedy 
for all distempers, says Dr. Sangrado. It is the uni- 
versal solvent, says the pharmacist. It is a great 
conveyor of nitrogen to the earth, says the agricul- 
turist. It is H 2 0, the compound being a limpid, 
nearly taseless fluid that solidifies at 32° F. and boils 
at 212° F., says the chemist. It is all these things, 
every one will surely say, besides being one of the last 
minerals to appear on this earth; it is the chief in- 
gredient of all organisms, the most potent quencher 
of thirst, the joy of the tea drinker, the last resource 
of the wine-bibber, and the delight of the swimmer. Is 
it not therefore very natural that it should take the 
first rank among alimentary substances? It was 
honored by primitive peoples, notably the Aryans, in 
the form of a sort of cult, and by the Hindoos who to 
this day are periodically purified in sacred lakes, 
rivers, and pools, as are Mohammedans of other 
countries who make their pilgrimage to Mecca's well 
where they bring and spread many diseases including 
cholera. . . . The innumerable " mineral waters " 
were from time immemorial, and even now are sup- 
posed by many over-credulous mortals to possess 
almost magical powers over all human ails, for there 
still lingers in many minds a relict of the ancient be- 
lief in the water of life and the fountain of youth. . . . 
Man learned to drink water as soon as his lips and 



98 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

mouth were something more than a suctorial appara- 
tus, and drank just enough to assuage his thirst. 
He was then too much like the instinctive beast to 
commit excesses in drink. But later he descended 
many degrees and his perversity led occasionally to 
a state of shocking inebriety 

It does not appear that the family garde-vin was 
transferred to the ark, and it seems that when the 
hydropotic skipper Noah had a thirst, he was obliged 
to open a porthole, dip a bucketful of water with 
which to satisfy his craving without the consolation 
of a little spirit and loaf sugar. After the waters of 
the freshet had subsided he had to wait much more 
than a year before he could harvest his crop and brew 
the new wine of which he imprudently drank more 
than was good for a patriarch of his advanced years 
and high respectability. In consequence of this in- 
discretion he suffered the tortures of the gout with 
violent inward cramps; he was also afflicted with hor- 
rid nightmares, and daily visions of snakes, water- 
rats, and grinning apes ... all of which got 
one of his sons into serious trouble. 

Some of the good people of old occasionally "went 
back" on water. Timothy's advice is a fair example: 
" Drink no longer water but a little wine for the stom- 
ach's sake." This is often quoted by wine bibbers, 
who also cite Burton's saying that water drinking is 
a common cause of melancholy, in endeavoring to 
excuse their excesses 

The poet Talfourd wrote the following verses to 



BEVERAGES 99 

give expression of his high appreciation of the power 
of water as a thirst quencher : 

" Tis a little thing 
To give a cup of water; yet its draught 
Of cool refreshment, drained by fevered lips, 
May give a shock of pleasure to the frame 
More exquisite than when nectarean juice 
Renews the life of joy in happiest hours." 

But of all the water consumed on this globe, man 
and beast get a comparatively small share as shown 
by the following admirable rendition by Cowley of 
the beautiful lines of Anacreon: 

"The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, 
And drinks and gapes for drink again; 
The plants suck in the earth, and are 
With constant drinking fresh and fair." 

The common people of Rome drank hot water, 
often to excess. Afterward, the use of iced water as 
a beverage was in fashion among the wealthy, and 
silos were constructed for the preservation of ice in 
great quantity, as mentioned by Seneca the philoso- 
pher (50 A. D,). . . . Water is now frequently 
drunk to great excess, notably by some periodical 
hard drinkers of spirits who, between times, seem to 
have an insatiable thirst and often drink daily from 
fifteen to twenty-five large glasses of iced-water, of 
ice water, or of snow water. 

An ancient bard sang the praises of water in the 
following quaintly humorous verse, which is Englished 
by Francis Mahoney in his Reliques of Father Prout. 

L0F& 



100 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 



L'Eloge de VEau. 

" II pleut! il pleut enfin! 

Et la vigne alteree 

Va se voir restauree 
Pas un bienfait divin. 
De l'eau chantons la gloire, 

On la meprise en vain, 
C'est l'eau qui nous fait boire 

Du vin! du vin! du vin! 



"C'est par l'eau j'en conviens 

Que Dieu fit le deluge; 

Mais ce souverain Juge 
Mit le mal pres du bien! 
Du deluge l'histoire 

Fait naitre le raisin; 
C'est l'eau qui nous fait boire 

Du vin! du vin! du vin! 

"Ah! combien je jouis 

Quand la riviere apporte 
Des vins de toute sorte 

Et de tous les pays! 

Ma cave est mon armoire — 
A 1' instant tout est plein; 

C'est l'eau qui nous fait boire 
Du vin! du vin! du vin! 

" Par un tems sec et beau 
Le meunier du village, 
Se morfond sans ouvrage, 

II ne boit que de l'eau; 

II rentre dans sa gloire 

Quand l'eau rentre au moulin; 

C'est l'eau qui lui fait boire 
Du vin! du vin! du vin! 



BEVERAGES 101 



"Faut-il un trait nouveau? 

Mes amis, je le guette; 

Voyez a la guinguette 
Entrer ce porteur d'eau! 
II y perd la memoire 

Des travaux de matin; 
C'est l'eau qui lui fait boire 

Du vin! du vin! du vin! 

" Mais a vous chanter l'eau 

Je sens que je m'altere; 

Donnez moi vite un verre 
Du doux jus du tonneau — 
Ce vin vient de la Loire 

Ou bien des bords du Rhin; 
C'est l'eau qui nous fait boire 

Du vin! du vin! du vin!" 



Wine Debtor to Water. 

(F. Mahoney.) 

Rain best doth nourish 

Earth's pride, the budding vine! 
Grapes best will nourish 

On which the dewdrops shine. 
Then why should water meet with scorn, 

Or why its claim to praise resign? 
When from that bounteous source is born 

The vine! the vine! the vine! 

Rain best disposes 

Earth for each blossom and each bud; 
True, we are told by Moses 

Once it brought on "a flood." 
But while that flood did all immerse, 

All save old Noah's holy line, 
Pray read the chapter and the verse — 

The vine is there! the vine! 



102 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Wine by water-carriage 

Round the globe is best conveyed; 
Then why disparage 

A path for old Bacchus made? 
When in our docks the cargo lands 

Which foreign merchants here consign, 
The wine's red empire wide expands — 

The vine! the vine! the vine! 

Rain makes the miller 

Work his glad wheel the livelong day; 
Rain brings the siller, 

And drives dull care away : 
For without rain he lacks the stream, 

And fain o'er watery cups must pine; 
But when it rains, he courts, I deem, 

The vine! the vine! the vine! 

Though all good judges 

Water's worth now understand, 
Mark yon chiel who drudges 

With buckets in each hand; 
He toils with water through the town, 

Until he spies a certain "sigh," 
Where entering, all his labour done, 

He drains thy juice, O vine! 

But pure water singing 

Dries full soon the poet's tongue; 
So crown all by bringing 

A draught drawn from the bung 
Of yonder cask, that wine contains 

Of Loire's good vintage or the Rhine 
Queen of whose teeming margin reigns 

The vine! the vine! the vine! 

"As plenty of water is one of the greatest additions 
to the pleasantness of any place, the Koran often 
speaks of the rivers of paradise as a principal orna- 



BEVERAGES 103 

ment thereof; some of these rivers, they say, flow with 
water, some with milk, some with wine, and others 
with honey, all taking their rise from the root of the 
tree Tuba — the tree of happiness. . . . Concern- 
ing this tree they fable that it stands in the palace 
of Mohammed, though a branch of it will reach to 
the house of every true believer; that it will be laden 
with pomegranates, grapes, dates, and other fruits 
of surprising bigness, and of tastes unknown to mor- 
tals. So that if a man desire to eat of any particular 
kind of fruit, it will immediately be presented him, 
or if he choose flesh, birds ready dressed will be set 
before him according to his wish. They add that the 
boughs of this tree will spontaneously bend down to 
the hand of the person who would gather of its fruits, 
and that it will supply the blessed not only with food, 
but also with silken garments, and beasts to ride on 
ready saddled and bridled, and adorned with rich 
trappings, which will burst forth from its fruits; 
and that this tree is so large, that a person mounted 
on the fleetest horse would not be able to gallop from 
one end of its shade to the other in a hundred years." * 

n. MILK. 

The most ancient of the lacteous fluids used by 
adult man as a beverage is unquestionably cocoanut 
milk, as proved beyond cavil by the aged Brother 

* Preliminary Discourse to the Koran, by George Sale, Sec- 
tion iv. 



104 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

who, during the fourth assembly of this Club, put an 
end to a spirited discussion by accounting for the milk 
in the cocoanut, discovered, as he said, by an affec- 
tionate mother anthropoid ape that had run dry and 
was obliged to bottle-feed her promising infant on 
this vegetable milk, sterilised by nature and sure never 
to cause cholera infantum, worms, or the sprue. 
There are other vegetable milks, but they are not all 
potable since, in certain cases, the fruit does not con- 
tain a sufficient quantity to satisfy man or simian, 
but some of them are unfailing topical remedies for 
warts, pimples, and other stigmata, except the cow- 
tree (arbol de leche) which is indigenous of South 
America and furnishes a nourishing beverage to man. 
The mineral kingdom does sometimes supply man 
and beast with milk, such as milk of lime for internal 
and external use, milk of magnesia for small boys, 
and milk of sulphur for little dogs. The earth itself 
seems to give off milk, for, the good book speaks of a 
certain land which was flowing with milk and even 
with honey. Coleridge seems to have discovered a 
new kind of milk, saying: 

<( For he on honey-dew hath fed, 
And drunk the milk of Paradise." 

There could be no better illustrations of the mis- 
chiefs often caused by too little or too much of any- 
thing than the following : Deficient lactation was the 
source of great distress to a certain fond simian 
mother. Her milk-fever was intense, then came a 



BEVERAGES 105 

milk-leg, and finally the source v of supply was drained, 
much to the injury of the infant who at first suffered 
the tortures of unappeased thirst. On the other hand, 
galactorrhea, from excessive secretion, has led to 
uncounted evils, as in the case of the Goddess whose 
flight could be traced by the milk which flowed from 
her, and for the loss of which she did shed many hot 
tears. Hence the saying weep not for spilled milk. 
It appears that in this divine lacteal incontinence the 
milk was not really lost, since the elements of all 
things are conserved in nature's wise economy — or 
as says Ovid, borrowing the idea from Pythagoras, 
"Omnia mutantur nihil interit," for all its globules 
were converted into stars, while the watery constit- 
uent mingled with her tears caused the universal 
deluge from which Noah escaped to drown his grief 
in the milk of the grape, for, has not the learned 
Doctor Sangrado, by finally adding wine to his cus- 
tomary aqueous drink, tacitly acknowledged that wine 
is the milk of old age? 

The ancients, those inveterate wine-bibbers, used 
very little milk as a beverage,* and generally 
converted it into cheese, which increased their de- 
sire for drink. Polyphemus, however, drank great 
draughts of his ewes' milk and relished it until he 

* A pandit gives as the main reason why the Greeks did not 
generally use milk as a beverage, that the working people were 
too filthy to think of ever washing the vessels into which it was 
poured, and in consequence it soured so soon as to be fit only 
for converting into cheese. 

In 1416 (B.C) Aristseus is said to have taught the Greeks 
how to clot milk. 



106 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

had tasted the good wine which Ulysses gave to put 
him in better humor. Circe was more generous with 
the milk of her cattle and her gifts of other dainties 
were abundant 

Romulus and Remus are still represented in marble 
enjoying their matutinal lacteous sorbitium from the 
udders of a she-wolf 

The Cretans believed that Jupiter was suckled by 
a sow and therefore venerated the pig as a sacred 
animal of whose flesh they never would eat. 

Dogs' and sows' milks are not much used nowa- 
days, but the milk of the cow, ewe, goat, and ass, in 
Europe and America, of the bison in North America, 
of the buffalo in Africa, of the camel in Persia, of 
the mare in Tartary, of the reindeer in Lapland, of 
the llama and vicuna in South America, and of the 
yak in the Pamirs and in Tibet, have been and are 
still used largely to drink as well as to make butter 
and cheese. 

There are several kinds of metaphoric human milk 
among which may be mentioned: "adversity's sweet 
milk," which is the philosopher's; "the milk of 
human kindness," which was not agreeable to the 
tyrant; "moral mush and milk," which was nauseous 
to a certain high cleric; and sundry other species not 
yet defined. 

III. OIL. 

Oil is drunk, not to quench thirst, but as a sort of 
fuel, by some northerly nations to maintain animal 



BEVERAGES 107 

heat; and melted butter, the oil of milk, by Egyp- 
tians, Nomadic Arabs, and other Eastern people to 
supply combustible material for their well-nigh desic- 
cated bodies 

Athenseus (Epit. B, ii, C. 17) says that Alexander 
the Great found, in Asia, "a fountain of oil." Was 
this intrepid warrior the real discoverer of petroleum, 
was he the first to "strike oil?" The historian does 
not say, however, that this flowing oil was fit even for 
a military cuisine, although it might then have been 
used as fuel. . * ., . 

The amount of oil and blubber taken each day by 
an Eskimo would, to say the least, seriously sicken 
the average white man if it were possible for him to 
ingest as much at home, even if his gorge did not rise 
at their sight or odor. 

Except medicinally, oil drinking in civilisation is 
uncommon. The doses of castor oil occasionally ad- 
ministered to hearty laborers would be dangerous to 
ordinary mortals. Extraordinarily large quantities 
of olive oil have been ingested with medicinal intent, 
as in the case of a man subject to nephritic colic for 
which he was in the habit of drinking half a pint of 
this oil at a time and three such doses in the course 
of the day. To another individual three pints of 
sweet oil were given by mouth within twenty-four 
hours. . . . 

It is said that when the Allies entered Paris every 
drop of oil disappeared from the street lamps, and that 
even tallow candles suddenly became scarce. 



108 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Vodka cocktails flavored with train oil seem to be 
relished by some creatures, while others prefer plain 
liquefied rancid butter which they drink "straight." 

"En fantaisie comme au gout, 
Chacun recherche son ragout," 

as the aged Gallic female ejaculated when she was 
surprised in the act of osculating her favorite galac- 
tophoric bovine crony. This statement of cow 
kissing, though in true, inflated, pedantic, John- 
sonian style, is excelled by Ruskin's paragraph re- 
lating to style to the effect that in his youth, when he 
imagined that he was doing fine writing, he would 
have expressed himself in these terms: "The abode 
in which I probably passed the happiest moments of 
my existence is in a state of inflammation." In 
after years when he had learned to write, the same 
idea was expressed in the following simple manner: 
"The house in which I was born is on fire." 

IV. FRUIT JUICES AND SAP. 

The juices of many different kinds of fruit are much 
used as cooling beverages either pure, or mixed with 
sweetened water, mainly in warm climates. The 
abundant juice of the cocoanut, though to us insipid, 
is drunk in the tropics to quench thirst when cool 
water is not accessible. In the West Indies there are 
many fruits which contain a great amount of delicious, 
cool, sweet juice which is sucked, or drunk without 
admixture to the satisfaction of the thirsty wayfarer. 



BEVERAGES 109 

The juice of the watermelon, equal to the eau- 
sucree so much liked by the Latin races, possesses 
a delicious flavor of its own to which blacks and bears 
give ample testimony by their extreme fondness for 
this forbidden fruit, which they are so sorely tempted 
to eat that they generally fail to resist the temptation, 
despite traps and spring-guns. 

In the West Indian sugar estates the fresh juice 
of the cane is drunk as a luxury by the planters and 
their friends. 

The sap of the sugar maple is also used as a dainty 
beverage in northerly climes, sometimes with the 
addition of spirits. It is probably the free flow of 
sap from an accidental wound that gave rise to the 
extravagant statements about the mythical fountain 
tree. 

The well known "grape cure" consists not merely 
in eating the fruit but in drinking its freshly expressed 
juice. Many deluded Americans have crossed the 
Atlantic to get, at great inconvenience, what they 
could so easily have obtained at home. 

The juices of the pineapple, orange, lemon, lime, 
gooseberry, and many other fruits, are mixed with 
sweetened water to form what is called the sherbet* 



*The word sherbet — sorbet in French — is supposed to be 
derived from sorbitium, juice, drink, from sorbere, to sip, to suck 
(hence to absorb), and has been traced to the Persian shorba, 
shorma, broth, soup; to the Kourdish sciorba, with the same 
meaning as the Persian; to middle Irish scrubaim, to sip, scruban, 
pottage, scrubog, a mouthful of liquid ; to the Lithuanian scrubti, 
screbti, also surbti, surpti, sulpti, to sip, to suck, scruba, soup; 
to old Slavonic scrubame, broth; and to the Illyrian ciorba, soup. 



110 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

In the Levant, fruit juices are often preserved in a 
concentrated form, with sugar, in closed vessels, and 
are mixed with water only a moment before they are 
drunk. Such is the common way in which sherbet 
is used in Turkey. Sherbet is often sophisticated with 
wine, brandy, or some other alcoholic liquor, so that 
the drinker is likely soon to feel its effect. This must 
have been of sufficiently frequent occurrence in 
Algeria to attract the French satyrist's notice, for, in 
the comic opera of the Caide, the unsteady steps and 
incoherent utterance of Ali Baba caused the grave 
accusation of vinous inebriation to be made against 
him. His defense was that he had not tasted a drop 
of wine, but that his exhilaration was due only to a 
moderate amount of a mild and deliciously sweet 
sherbet called parfait amour. The character of Ali 
Baba was admirably portrayed by the great actor 
Menehant in Nea Kastana more than forty years 
since. 

At a grand banquet in Chestnutville about thirty- 
eight years ago a strict temperance man spent no 
little time in wearying the guests by denouncing 
tobacco smoking and "wine-bibbing," and concluded 
by saying that he was proud to acknowledge his utter 
ignorance of the taste of wine or spirits. The Phari- 
saical tone of the speech aroused the unholy spirit of 
revenge in the breast of one of the company, who 
insinuatingly said that on the particular festive occa- 
sion the teetotaller would surely be so gracious as 
to depart from his rule of abstention and join the rest 



BEVERAGES 111 

in drinking the health of the guest of honor if only by 
sipping a few drops of a mild wine, but he obstinately 
refused until lemonade was suggested. This, he said, 
I have no objection to drink for it is a harmless bev- 
erage. Allow me, then, said the mischief-maker, to 
prepare the temperance drink. Retiring for the pur- 
pose, he returned in a few minutes with a " schooner" 
of lemonade, not with a "stick" but with a "club" 
in it. After the first mouthful the cold water man 
exclaimed — I have never before had such excellent 
lemonade, so deliciously flavored. Continuing to gulp 
the liquor, he became unduly garrulous and rose to 
tell a funny story. Everybody laughed, not, how- 
ever, at the story. His thirst increasing, he called 
for more lemonade, and a second schooner with two 
"clubs" therein was forthcoming. On further im- 
bibition he smacked his lips, cleared his throat, and 
began a new temperance speech, with hiccup accom- 
paniment, at the close of which he said that the com- 
pany did not seem gay, and gave example of jollity 
by singing a comic song. Having finished the second 
schooner, he called for more, but before the third 
glass could be brewed he was snoring and helpless, 
and was the only guest who had to be carried home. 



VIII 

V. FERMENTED LIQUORS 

"Wine cheers the sad, revives the old, inspires 
The young, makes weariness forget his toil." 

Ye true gourmets, whose refined taste and love for 
all dainty things are such as to render you adverse 
to polyoinia and foes to wine-guzzlers, ancient and 
modern, let us continue our discussion on beverages, 
and begin with some historical fragments on those 
drinks which art has rendered so palatable. 

Fermented liquors, obtained as they are from the 
products of nature which contain starch or sugar, 
constitute many varieties of the artificial beverages 
used by man. The discovery of fermentation,* like 
that of many other very desirable objects, was un- 
doubtedly accidental and it does not seem possible 
to determine the precise time when its employment 
began. It is, however, highly probable that the 
discoverer of the effect of heat upon alimentary 
substances did indoctrinate his first born into the 
mysteries of cookery and that the lad, endowed with 
an indagating turn of mind, wishing to improve on his 

* The term fermentation — contracted from fervimentation 
which is derived from fervere, to boil — appears to have been 
coined by Van Helmont in the beginning of the seventeenth 
century. 

112 



FERMENTED EIQUOES 113 

respected sire's methods, made experiments toward the 
perfection of the culinary art, that he invented boiling 
of food, that he drank some of the soup, that, after- 
ward, neglecting the surplus for a few days, he found 
it in such a state of foam as to be unfit for use, that in 
a few more days he strained therefrom a clear liquid 
which he drank and which made him glad, and finally 
that he discovered the frothing, without artificial 
heat, of the sap of trees and the juices of fruits which 
yielded a better beverage. 

An idea of other primitive ways in which fermenta- 
tion has been obtained may be formed from the 
following : 

The Araucanians, says Girardin, before having had 
any relations with other nations, made the fermented 
drink now called chicha of maize. As soon as the 
grain was harvested, the women of the tribe sat in 
circles, and each taking a few grains of the maize 
chewed them for a time and spat the whole in an 
earthen vessel. A sufficient quantity of the corn thus 
treated was allowed to ferment. The resulting strong 
liquor was then drunk to inebriation by the men. 
Captain Cook, during his third voyage, witnessed a 
similar performance in the Island of Tonga, i. e., the 
preparation of the drink known as Kava-kava which 
consisted in the mastication, by young women, of the 
root of the piper meihysticum; the product being spat 
in calabashes and allowed to ferment. The free 
Indians of French Guyana use a drink called Pivory 
made of mashed cassava bread mixed with water 



114 DINING- AND ITS AMENITIES 

and fermented; and another called chiacoar made of 
corn-bread fermented in water. The bousa or bouza 
of Nubia and Abyssinia is fermented bread in water, 
while the bousa of Central Africa is fermented rush 
nut, cyperus esculentus. Nearly all savages seem to 
have found means to make intoxicating beverages. 
The Chinese from time immemorial have drunk a 
liquor made from rice fermentation, and the Tartars 
have long been in the habit of drinking fermented 
mare's milk, while many semi-civilised nations have 
employed almost as crude and revolting methods of 
obtaining by fermentation their intoxicating bever- 
ages as those already described. 

The principal fermented liquors now used are: 1, 
Hydromel, 2, Fermented Milk, 3, Fermented Sap, 
and Fruit Juices, 4, Cider and Perry, 5, Beer, 6, Wine. 

1. HYDROMEL. 

Honey mixed with water and allowed to undergo 
vinous fermentation is the beverage known as hy- 
dromel, metheglin, or mead; aromatic substances 
being sometimes added thereto. It has been much 
used in northern countries and was a favorite drink 
in Poland,* Russia, and Scandinavia, and throughout 
Asia ages ago. In Greece the Phrygian hydromel 
was the most highly esteemed of all. During the 
middle ages, metheglin was largely used as a beverage 
in England and Wales, but beer has since taken its 
place except in some rural districts. Hydromel is 

* Poland boasted of at least fifty sorts of mead. 



FERMENTED LIQUORS 115 

said to be the first fermented beverage known to 
man. 

2. FERMENTED MILK. 

The nomadic tribes of Tartary and Asiatic Russia 
sub] ect mare's milk to fermentation to make the drink 
known as koumys or tchigan. In Siberia the koumys 
receptacle, made of birch bark, is transmitted from 
father to offspring and acquires a value proportionate 
to its antiquity. The same people use also cow's 
milk for fermentation, and call the drink airen. The 
Kirghiz make, with the yak's milk, a drink of the 
same sort, and in northern Siberia the reindeer's milk 
is used for the purpose. 

The beverage called kephir, in the northern Cau- 
casus, is fermented cow's, ewe's, or goat's milk. The 
enzyme producing the peculiar fermentation is called 
kephir; the botanical name of the bacterium being 
diospora caucasica. In the market the dry ferment 
is also called kephir grains or kephir fungus. 

In this country a large quantity of cow's milk, 
diluted and sweetened with cane sugar, and fermented, 
is consumed under the name of koumys. The per- 
centage of alcohol in koumys is from one to one 
and a quarter which is not as much of this alcohol as 
is contained in buckwheat cakes. 

3. FERMENTED SAP AND FRUIT JUICES. 

The fermented sap of the maple, birch, sycamore, 
and the date, cocoa, and divers other palms, of the 
sagus vinifera, arenga saccharifera, of the agave or 



116 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

maguey, banana, sugar-cane, and the juices of cherries, 
gooseberries, oranges, and many other plants and 
fruits under the name of each plant or fruit, have been 
ranked as wines, as sycamore wine, palm wine, 
banana wine, maguey wine or pulque, elderberry 
wine, orange wine, gooseberry wine, etc. At present 
the term wine is applied mainly to fermented grape 
juice. 

In the East and West Indies, in East Africa, and 
in Brazil, the fermented sap of the jaggery, wild date, 
palmyra, cocoanut, arenga, raphia vinifera, burity, 
and other palms, is known under the name of palm 
wine or toddy from which arrack is obtained by dis- 
tillation. In this country a mixture of spirits and 
sweetened hot water is commonly called toddy, as 
brandy or whiskey toddy. 

4. CIDER AND PERRY. 

The fermented juice of apples is said to have been 
first used as a beverage by the Egyptians, and then 
by the Hebrews, who called it shekar, which, how- 
ever, had no meaning except that of the fermented 
juice of fruits other than that of the grape. The early 
Christians Hellenised it into sikera and Latinised it 
into sicera, but these terms failed to change the orig- 
inal shekar. Surely, cider conveys no idea of apples, 
while the fermented juice called perry suggests some- 
thing made of pears. In these times we hear of pear 
cider, why not then apple cider? Nevertheless, the 



FERMENTED LIQUORS 117 

term sicera, with slight orthographic changes de- 
manded by varying idioms, is accepted by modern 
nations, who agree that it shall mean fermented apple 
juice; as cidre, in French; sidra, in Spanish; cidra, in 
Portuguese; cidro, in Italian; cider, in German, which 
is also apfel-wein. The Greeks, Romans, Iberians, 
Celts, and Gauls, all called cider apple or pear wine. 
In post-classic Latin the word pomun was used to 
designate all kinds of round fruits, but was later em- 
ployed to specialise the apple, hence cider was named 
pomatium and perry piratium. Since apples and pears 
are indigenous of, and cultivated only in, temperate 
regions, it is not likely that they were raised in Pales- 
tine or lower Egypt; therefore shekar could not have 
been made of apples or pears unless these were im- 
ported in quantities so great as to induce the utili- 
sation of the surplus in the brewing of this drink, or 
unless the sorb-apple was cultivated in the highlands 
of Palestine and used in the preparation of shekar. 

Prior to the thirteenth century beer was the popular 
drink in the north of France, and the use of cider did 
not become general until the fourteenth century. 
Later it became known in England, Germany and 
Russia. The cider in highest repute in after years 
seems to have come from the Island of Jersey. Be- 
sides lending its name to an American State, Jersey 
bequeathed its reputation for good cider to that 
State which soon became famous for the "light- 
ning" spirit distilled from fermented apple juice. 
Ciders of different countries contain, in volume, from 



118 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

1.17 to 7.40 per centum of alcohol. American ciders 
contain from 4 to 5 per centum of alcohol. 

The pear yields much more juice and saccharine 
matter than the apple and therefore a stronger 
beverage, which contains from 6 to 8 per centum of 
alcohol. Perry, poiree, is used in France to adul- 
terate and fortify some veiy light wines, and is even 
sometimes sold as wine; and highly sparkling perry 
is often called champagne cider, although a cham- 
pagne cider is made of apples. 

5. BEER. 

Fermented watery infusion of malted grain with 
the addition of some preservative principle such as 
oak bark, the leaves of certain trees, bitter roots, or 
wild herbs, was in use as a beverage many years ago. 
It is supposed to have been invented in 1996 B. C. 
According to Herodotus and other historians, beer 
was the most common drink among the Egyptians, 
who called it held, and was regarded as a gift of Isis 
and Osiris. At first malted wheat was infused and 
fermented, and later barley. The Greeks, who learned 
its value from the Egyptians, called it oinos crithes, 
wine of barley, and also zythos or bryton. 

In The Deipnosophists of Athenseus, Book X, 67, 
the following occurs: ". . . Aristotle, in his book 
on drunkenness . . . says there is a peculiarity 
in the effects of the drink made of barley, which they 
call pinos, for they who get drunk on other intoxicat- 
ing liquors fall on all parts of their body; they fall 



FERMENTED LIQUOKS 119 

on the left side, on the right side, on their faces and 
on their backs. But it is only those who get drunk 
on pinos, beer, who fall on their backs, and lie with 
their faces upward. . . . The wine ... of 
barley is by some called brytos, ... as say 
Sophocles, Archilochus, and Aeschylus. But Hel- 
lanicus in his Origins says . . . 'they drink 
bryton, beer, made of roots, as the Thracians drink 
it made of barley.' And Hecataeus, in the second 
book of his description of the world, speaks of the 
Egyptians, and saying that they are great bread eat- 
ers, adds 'they bruise barley and make a drink of it.' 
And, in his voyage round Europe, he says that the 
Paeonians drink beer made of barley, and a liquor 
called parabie made of millet and coniza. And they 
anoint themselves, he adds, with oil made of milk." 



Pliny asserts that the Gauls called beer cerevisia 
or cervisia, Ceres wine. In old French it was known 
as cervoise and its present Spanish name is cervesa. 
It is said that beer drinking became general, not only 
in Gaul, after Domitian had caused all the vineyards 
of that country to be destroyed, but throughout the 
continent of Europe. Beer was then, and for a long 
time thereafter, aromatised as already mentioned, by 
bitter roots, etc., as the use of hops does not appear 
to have 9 been known until about the ninth century 
when they were cultivated in Germany, and it seems 
highly probable that they were used to aromatise 



120 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

and preserve beer. Credit is, however, given to the 
alchemist, Basilius Valentinus, who lived in the fif- 
teenth century, as the first author to make mention 
of this expedient. Hops were first brought into Eng- 
land from the Netherlands in the year 1524. They 
are first mentioned in the English statute book in 
1552. . . 

A fat, grave, oracular, stolid brytopotist of old, 
while smoking his long-stemmed clay pipe, was in the 
habit of repeating, always with a chuckle and a know- 
ing leer, to the frequenters of a certain beer house, 
his favorite drinking aphorism to the effect that the 
ingestion of the smallest amount 'of spirits is to be 
regarded as excessive, while too much beer is just 
enough. 

6. WINE. 

Although the fermented juices of many fruits and 
plants are often called wines, the term, from time 
immemorial, has been restricted to fermented grape 
juice. 

The words oinos, and oine, vine, are of doubtful 
etymony. The Latins derive their word vinum 
from vitis, vine, and many modern nations have 
adopted the Latin root; as the French, vin; the Ital- 
ian and Spanish, vino; the Portuguese, vinho; while 
the German and Russian use the w, wein, wino. 

The following from Book II, I, of Athenseus may 
not be without some interest. 

"Nicander of Clophon says that wine, oinos, has 
its name from Oeneus: 



FERMENTED LIQUORS 121 

'Oeneus pour'd the juice divine 
In hollow cups, and call'd it wine.' " 

And Melanippides of Melas says: 

" 'Twas Oeneus, master, gave his name to wine." 

But Hecatseus of Miletus says that the vine was 
discovered in Aetolia; and adds, "Oresteus, the son 
of Deucalion, came to Aetolia to endeavor to obtain 
the kingdom; and while he was there, a bitch he had 
brought forth a stalk; and he ordered it to be buried 
in the ground, and from it there sprang up a vine 
loaded with grapes. On which account he called 
his son Phytius. And he had a son named Oeneus, 
who was so called from the vines: for the ancient 
Greeks, says he, 'called vines, oinai. Now Oeneus 
was the father of Aetolus.' But Plato in his Cratylus, 
inquiring into the etymony of the word oinos, says 
that it is equivalent to oionous, as filling the mind, 
nous, with oiesis, or self-conceit. Perhaps, however, 
the word may be derived from onesis, succour. For 
Homer, giving as it were, the derivation of the word, 
speaks nearly after this fashion — And then you will 
be succour' d (oneseai) if you drink. And he, too, 
constantly calls food oneiata, because it supports us." 

THE MYTHICAL ORIGIN OF WINE. 

Achilles Tatius in his romance "The loves of Civ- 
topho and Leucippe," * tells the following story of 
the origin of wine. 

* Rev. Rowland Smith's translation. 



122 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

"Once upon a time, mortals had no such thing as 
wine, neither the black and fragrant kind, nor the 
Biblian, nor the Maronsean, nor the Chian, nor the 
Iacarian; all these they maintain came originally 
from Tyre, their inventor being a Tyrian. A certain 
neat-herd (resembling the Athenian Icarius, who is 
the subject of a very similar story) gave occasion to 
the legend I am about to relate. Bacchus happened 
to come to the cottage of this countryman, who set 
before him whatever the earth and the labors of his 
oxen had produced. Wine, as I observed, was then 
unknown; like the oxen, therefore, their beverage 
was water. Bacchus thanked him for his friendly 
treatment and presented to him a 'loving cup' which 
was filled with wine. Having taken a hearty draught, 
and becoming very jovial from its effects, he said — 
whence, stranger, did you procure this purple water, 
this delicious blood? It is quite different from that 
which flows along the ground, for that descends into 
the vitals, and affords cold comfort at the best ; where- 
as this, even before entering the mouth, rejoices the 
nostrils, and though cold to the touch, leaps down 
into the stomach and begets a pleasurable warmth. 
To this Bacchus replied — 'This is the water of an 
autumnal fruit, this is the blood of the grape/ and 
so saying he conducted the neat-herd to a vine, and, 
squeezing a bunch of grapes, said, 'here is the water, 
and this is the fountain whence it flows.' Such is the 
account which the Tyrians give as to the origin of 
wine." 



FEBMENTED LIQUORS 123 

To this legend is added the following note about 
Maronsean wine. "The wine of the most earthly- 
celebrity was that which the minister of Apollo, Maron, 
who dwelt upon the skirts of Thracian Ismarus, gave 
to Ulysses. It was red and honey-sweet; so precious 
that it was unknown to all in the mansion save the 
wife of the priest and one trusty house-keeper; so 
strong, that a single cup was mixed with twenty of 
water; so fragrant, that even when thus diluted it 
diffused a divine and most tempting perfume."* 
(See Odyssey, Book IX.) 

Although the vine flourished in Persia south of 
the Caspian Sea, wine was not made on the spot, and 
the Persian kings obtained this beverage from Tyre 
and its vicinity. 

It is said that wine was made and used in the coun- 
try now known as France more than two thousand 
years ago. An old legend is to the effect that Brennus 
brought a sprig of vine from Rome to Gallia 390 years 
B. C. and there planted it. The story is admirably 
told by the illustrious songster Beranger, and skil- 

* From the results of an investigation as to the use of fer- 
mented drinks by pre-historic peoples, M. G. de Mortillet con- 
cludes that the lake dwellers of Clairvaux in the Jura, and of 
Switzerland, show that the neolithic people of Central Europe 
had a wine made from raspberries and mulberries; and the 
dwellings of Bourget in Savoy and various stations in the Alps, 
that the use of this wine continued through the Bronze age. 
On the southern slope of the Alps the relics of the dwellings 
between the pre-historic and the proto-historic ages reveal the 
use of another fermented liquor, prepared from the dogwood. 
Traces of the use of wine from grapes are found in the terra- 
mares of the plain of the Po, going as far back as the earliest 
bronze age. (Popular Science Monthly, April, 1898.) 



124 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

fully done into English verse in Francis Mahoney's 
Reliques of Father Prout. That charming Gallic 
troubadour sang also the praise of Cyprian wine; 
his refrain being — "Le vin de Chypre a cree tous les 
dieux." 

If the Persians and Greeks made so much of their 
nauseously sweet wines, and if Horace gave such 
celebrity to his favorite Falernian wine, surely Shaks- 
peare did as much for shirris sack (a corruption of 
Xeres sec, dry sherry) which was greatly esteemed by 
amateurs toward the end of the sixteenth century, as 
exemplified in Henry IV, Part II, (which, says 
Malone, was composed in 1598) Act IV, Sc. II, 
where Falstaff, after parting from Prince John, who, 
knowing his ways, had nevertheless promised to speak 
better of him than he deserved, laments the sobriety 
of this demure young prince who could not even be 
made to laugh, "but that's no marvel, he drinks no 
wine:" and ends his soliloquy with a short disserta- 
tion on sack, only a part of which need be here quoted 
as a reminder. . . . 

"A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold operation in 
it. It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all 
the foolish, and dull and crudy vapors which environ 
it: makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of 
nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes; which delivered 
o'er to the voice, which is the birth, becomes ex- 
cellent wit. The second property of your excellent 
sherris is, the warming of the blood, which, before 
cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which 



FERMENTED LIQUOES 125 

is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice; but the 
sherris warms it, and makes it course from the in- 
wards to the parts extreme. It illumineth the face, 
which as a beacon, gives warning to all the rest of 
this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital 
commoners, and inland petty spirits, muster me all 
to their captain, the heart, who, great and puffed up 
with his retinue, doth any deed of courage; and this 
valour comes of sherris. ... If I had a thousand 
sons, the first human principle I would teach them, 
should be, to forswear thin potations and to addict 
themselves to sack." 

Another wine used in Shakspeare's time was the 
charneco, so named, says Staunton, from a village 
near Lisbon, where it is made. The following occurs 
in Henry VI, Part II, Act II, Scene III: 

" And here, neighbor, here's a cup of charneco." 

That inexhaustible theme, the gladdening effect 
of wine upon man will long continue to be sung as it 
has been from Homer to Doctor Bushwhacker, who 
says: "I have a theory that certain wines produce 
certain effects upon the mind. I believe, sir, that 
if I were to come in upon a dinner-party about the 
time when conversation had become luminous and 
choral, I could easily tell whether Claret, Champagne, 
Sherry, Madeira, Burgundy, Port, or Punch had been 
the prevailing potable. Yes, sir, and no doubt a 
skilful critic could determine, after a careful analysis 
of the subject, upon what drink, sir, a poem was 



126 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

written. Yes, sir, or tell a claret couplet from a 
sherry couplet, sir, or distinguish the flavor of Port 
in one stanza, and Madeira in another, from internal 
evidence, sir." * 

* " The Sayings of Doctor Bushwhacker." 



IX 



VI. DISTILLED LIQUORS 

"Give strong drink to him that is ready to perish, 
And wine unto those that be of heavy hearts." 

That colorless, limpid, volatile distillate with allur- 
ing aroma and seductive savor, poetically styled 
spirit of wine, technically named ethylic alcohol, 
chemically formulated C 2 H 5 OH, and physically stated 
as having a gravity of 0.793 at 60° F., as boiling at 
173° F., as burning without smoke, and as freezing at 
200 degrees below zero, is the basis of many exhilar- 
ating and intoxicating beverages, and a powerful 
solvent. 

Of Arabic origin, the word alcohol (kuhul) was em- 
ployed to signify the impalpably pulverised black 
sulphide of antimony used to stain the eye-lids and 
lashes of belles of the period, and for the " make up " 
of actors in ancient Arabian pantomimes, vaudevilles, 
and comic operas. Down to the close of the eigh- 
teenth century the term was intended to designate 
any principle attenuated by pulverisation or sublima- 
tion, and the expression to alcoholise, used until 
recently, meant to cause extreme attenuation of any 
powdered or liquid substance; as "alcoholised sul- 
phides, alcoholised spirit of wine." Alcoholisation 

127 



128 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

was not intended to convey an adequate idea of the 
effects of the spirit of wine on those young men who 
periodically indulge their fancy for rubric urban 
decoration. 

Alcohol has, of late, been applied as a generic term 
to those neutral principles composed of carbon, hy- 
drogen, and oxygen, combinable with acids with the 
elimination of water. It was Boerhaave who de- 
tached the term alcohol from its original meaning by 
applying it to the purest inflammable principle re- 
duced to its highest degree of simplicity. . . . 

Speaking of the spirit of wine Berthelot says that 
in the thirteenth century the term spirit was confined 
to volatile agents alone, such as mercury, the sul- 
phurets of arsenic, and ammoniacal salts; that as to 
the appellation water of life (eau-de-vie) this name 
was given during the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- 
turies to the elixir of long life; that it was Arnauld de 
Villeneuve who in 1309 employed it for the first time 
to designate the product of distillation of wine; and 
that the elixir of long life had nothing in common with 
our alcohol. Villeneuve, after the alchemist Ray- 
mond Lully, spoke of alcohol, quinta essentia, as the 
supreme cordial of the human body, and made known 
its medicinal properties. It is written that Rhazes, 
who was born in 860 A. D. and died in 930, knew the 
properties of alcohol which he called ardent water. 
Berthelot and other writers assert that distillation 
was invented in Egypt in the course of the early 
centuries of the Christian era; stills (alembics) being 



DISTILLED LIQUOKS 129 

described with precision in the works of Zosimus, 
the alchemist, who lived in the latter part of the third 
and beginning of the fourth century. 

The supposed words of the antiquarian Polidore 
Virgil are not here quoted, although they appear to 
trace the beginning of distillation to the foundation 
of the Roman Empire, because they are contained 
in the fourth chapter of the ninth book of a recent 
edition, and there is no such book in "De Rerum 
Inventoribus" published in 1499 with only three 
books, and because the ninth book may have t>een 
added by some editor. It may, however, be that the 
subject of this fourth chapter is to be found in the 
third or other books of the original editions which 
were not accessible to Deipneus. However, assuming 
the ninth book to have been written by good Father 
Polidore, it is clear that, in the matter of distillation 
and early spirit drinking, the Egyptians and Romans 
are thrown quite into the shade by the statement of 
the learned, venerable, and never-to-be-forgotten 
historian of Saharampur to the effect that distilla- 
tion was known in the very mists of time, soon after 
the evolution of anthropus primogenitus. This veridi- 
cal historian goes on to say that not very long after 
the remote period of the ascent of homo cogitans 
from pithecanthropus erectus, advantage was taken 
by his immediate successors of their observation of 
the condensation of aqueous vapor from clouds, and 
one of them invented an apparatus for the artificial 
production of vapor and by that means, besides find- 



130 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

ing the properties of steam, discovered alcohol in 
fermented sap, and distilled and drank enough of it 
to make him more than glad. The process of distilla- 
tion and the pleasant effects of the product soon be- 
came generally known and were transmitted from 
generation to generation until finally, to take a drop 
in the morning as an eye-opener, another at noon as a 
provocative of appetite, and a copious draught at 
night as a soporific, was considered salubrious and 
was highly recommended by publicans throughout 
the Orient. It was then that the Hindoos of high and 
low castes were wont to delight their palates, warm 
their entrails, and stimulate their brains to such ex- 
tremes that they had to be warned through the sacred 
ordinances of Manu against the offense of inebriation, 
and even the twice-born were often urged to avoid 
the tempting spirit of wine. It is no wonder that 
these God-fearing people could not well resist the 
temptation of spirit-drinking since water was never 
of prime quality in their region of the globe, and 
moreover was declared unsanitary by their leading 
Bacteriologists, and since they had the choice of 
thirteen different kinds of throat curetting rum, and 
whiskey highly charged with fusel oil and other 
searching, scratchy, peppery essences, which doubt- 
less they imbibed straight, in cocktails, or sparingly 
diluted with club soda. 

Valuable information on the history of distillation 
may be obtained by consulting a paper entitled 
"Historical notes on Alcohol" by Professor James F. 



DISTILLED LIQUORS 131 

Babcock in "New Remedies" for November, 1880, 
with further annotations by one of the editors; also 
a digest of Marcelin Berthelot's article on "The dis- 
covery of alcohol and distillation" in "The Pharma- 
ceutical Journal and Transactions," February 4th, 
1893, and the papers, on this interesting subject, of 
C. E. Pellew, M. D. in " Appleton's Popular Science 
Monthly" for June and July, 1893. 

In a private letter, an illustrious pandit says "The 
crude methods alluded to in the first note on page 
359 (Annotations to Professor Babcock's article), 
second column, were no doubt merely practised for 
physical experimental purposes, but no practical use 
was made of the product. While I allow that it is 
possible that the Hindus knew distilled spirits quite 
early, it will be found that we cannot go back beyond 
about 910 A. D. for any positive statement. I now 
hold that the term Kohala, to which I was the first 
to draw attention, and which means a distilled spirit, 
is undoubtedly borrowed from the Arabic Kuhl or 
Kuhul, black sulphide of antimony or lead." * . . . 

Alcohol used in moderation, suitably diluted or in 
the form of wines or malt liquors, is a delightful 
beverage and valuable medicinal agent, but when 
taken intemperately causes the saddest ravages. 
The inebriated individual is often loquacious, foolish 
and extravagant, he is sometimes combative, he loses 
his self-control, his head swims, he totters, perhaps 
falls in a state of insensibility, or becomes ravingly 
* Dr. Charles Rice. 



132 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

delirious, and from a shock may suddenly recover 
his senses. This is briefly and admirably stated by 
the great delineator of human character, in the case 
of Michael Cassio who, much to the surprise of Iago, 
quickly passes from wild inebriation into moralisa- 
tion on the ill effects of excessive potation — "0 that 
men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal 
away their brains!" . . . Continued excessive 
use of alcohol surely leads to seriously damaging 
effects upon the tissues and organs of the body. 
The dipsomaniac who begins dissipation at an early 
age is not likely to survive long the ill consequences 
of the poison, a part only of which is destroyed in the 
economy while the remainder is eliminated unchanged 
to tease and irritate the emunctories. Three or four 
large potations of rum, whiskey or gin, say of half a 
pint each, in rapid succession, produce the gravest 
effects, and, in some cases, even sudden death. A 
man twenty-six years of age was recently reported to 
have dropped dead after drinking twenty-seven 
glasses of whiskey. . . . 

The habitual drinker's nose often betrays him, but 
every red-nosed man is not necessarily to be regarded 
as a wine or spirit drinker. An amusing instance of 
such an error was in the case of an eminent physician 
who had never tasted wine or spirit but who had a 
huge nose, fiery red as Bardolph's upon which fat 
Jack saw a flea stick and said it was a black soul burn- 
ing in hell fire. This excellent man and conscientious 
doctor was one day prescribing for a woman who 



DISTILLED LIQUORS 133 

asked that she be allowed something strong to drink, 
when he said no — nothing but cold water, not a drop 
of whiskey, of which you have had more than enough. 
— Bad cess to ye, Dachter, it never was cauld wather 
made yer nose so red I . . . 

It should be noted that hard drinkers prefer the 
crude, strong liquors containing a liberal proportion 
of amy lie and caproic alcohols. Some of them form 
the habit of drinking pure methylic alcohol (wood 
spirit) which is very poisonous to the uninitiated. 
Varnishers often drink the wood spirit of shellac var- 
nish after causing precipitation of the shellac by the 
addition of some water. Other sots even drink the 
"Kerosene oil" of lamps. In museums it has be- 
come necessary to add divers nauseous substances 
to the. alcohol used for the preservation of specimens 
to prevent its consumption by bibbing subordinates. 
The dipsomaniac will drink anything having the sem- 
blance of alcohol. 

For an excuse to take more alcohol as counter 
poison, heavy drinkers are wont to utter the old adage 
"Take the hair of the dog by whom you are bitten." 
The exact age of this tipplers' proverb does not ap- 
pear to be known, but it was in common use nearly 
two thousand years ago, and is quoted by Athenseus 
(Epit. B. II, C. 20) from Antiphanes, who says: 

"Take the hair, it is well written, 
Of the dog by whom you are bitten. 
Work off one wine by his brother, 
And one labor with another.'' 



134 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

The principal strong alcoholic beverages now in 
use are: 1. Brandy, 2. Rum, 3. Whiskey, 4. Gin, 
5. Arrack, 6. Vodka, 7. Sake, 8. Samshoo, 9. Tepache, 
10. Aguardiente, 11. Arza, 12. Bland, 13. The many 
cordials. 

1. Brandy, contracted from brandy-wine, from the 
old French brandevin, the German brantwein, all 
meaning burned wine, now commonly called eau-de-vie 
which, distilled from wine, contains forty-eight to 
fifty-five per centum of ethylic alcohol with the right 
proportion of an added essence that gives it what is 
called its bouquet. Among the component parts of 
cognac essence are the cenanthic and pelargonic ethers. 
The best brandies are distilled from white wines, and 
the city of Cognac has long enjoyed a high reputation 
for its brandies which are commonly called cognac 
for short, just as champagne is used to designate 
the wines of Champagne. Of the many other bran- 
dies in use, only a few of the best known need now be 
mentioned, such as plum, peach, pear, and apple 
brandy often called apple jack or Jersey lightning. 

Fine champagne eau-de-vie is surely one of the best 

of stomachics after a good dinner and is always 

suggestive of Johnson's epigram — "claret for boys, 

port for men, and brandy for heroes." Boswell in 

his life of Johnson renders it as follows: 

"Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who 
aspires to be a hero must drink brandy." 

Hot Jersey lightning toddy with a baked apple 
therein is not a bad winter night drink. . The brandy 



DISTILLED LIQUORS 135 

cocktail with its sweet, sour, and bitter flavorings is 
one of the enormities of national drinks which has 
become known to our transatlantic cousins, but which 
they have not yet learned to render palatable. O! 
ye confiding traveller, never do you commit the in- 
discretion of ordering any kind of cocktail in a foreign 
cafe! ... To speak of cocktails is remindful of 
the short conversation between a New Yorker and a 
Londoner who asked — Ave you the hentail in Ha- 
merica? — No, said the Gothamite, but we have the 
cocktail. — 0, ah, quite so, indeed! 

" Punch is a strong weak 
And a sour sweet drink." 

For it was long ago that the following formula was 
given for a good punch, requiring brandy to make 
it strong, water to make it weak, sugar to make it 
sweet, lemon to make it sour. 

2. Rum, distilled from molasses or from cane juice, 
with its seventy-five per centum of alcohol, makes 
the most quarrelsome and pugnacious kind of drunk. 
This is probably why the word rum is popularly used 
to designate any sort of intoxicant, rum drinking 
having the meaning, among plain people, of the use 
of any spirit, and rum-shop, a tavern. . . . The 
best rum comes from Martinique, Antigua, Santa 
Cruz, and Jamaica. New England furnishes an 
abundant supply of rum distilled from molasses and 
sugar-house rubbish. An inferior rum called tafia 
is made in the West Indies, another known as bess-a~ 



136 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

besse, a third from molasses, named cachaca in Brazil, 
and a fourth, from cane juice chicha de carta in New 
Granada. These spirits are almost always suggestive 
of Mr. Stiggins' habit of dropping a bit of loaf sugar 
in his tipple of pine-apple rum. 

3. Whiskey — corrupted from usquebaugh — is from 
the Celtic, uisge, water, and beatha, life, water of 
life. That often illicit distillate from barley, wheat, 
rye, corn, or potato, has made and undone many good 
fellows, with its forty-eight to fifty per centum of 
ethylic and small proportion of amylic alcohol which 
disappears with age. Potato whiskey contains more 
amylic alcohol (fusel oil) than any of the other 
whiskeys. Ireland and Scotland produce and con- 
sume "lashings" of this delicious drink which has a 
very different flavor from the American varieties, 
each of which has its peculiarities, as the corn, the 
rye, and the wheat whiskey, a large quantity of which 
is brewed in Canada. 

Under the influence of barley brew the Scotch 
Bard's humor was always gay when he was na foo 
but had plenty. Although potheen often excites 
combativeness in the man of Galway, it intensifies the 
good nature and brightens the wit of the whole nation. 
Who can forget the chestnut of Pat's dream of a visit 
to the Vatican? "Last noight I dhreamed that the 
head-bishop ov Room axed me to have a dhrop ov 
the crather. Phaclrick, says he to me, will you be 
afther taking it straight or in punch? Saving your 



DISTILLED LIQUORS 137 

Holiness' prisince, says I to him, if the matarials bees 
convaniant, the stuff would be betther for a little 
hate and suggar — as the Holy Father went for the 
hot water I woke up, and it's distrissed I am that I 
didn't take it cauld!" 

Father Tom's receipt for punch is so often mis- 
quoted that it is the writer's bounden duty to record 
it with absolute accuracy. Here it is, and something 
besides, taken verbatim et literatim from "Father Tom 
and the Pope," Simpson & Co. Agathenian Press, 
1867. "Now, 'your Holiness,' says Father Tom 
'this bein' the first time you ever clispinsed them 
chymicals, says he, I'll just make bould to lay down 
one rule of orthography,' says he, ' for conwhounding 
them, secundem mortem." 

"What's that?" says the Pope. 

"Put in the sperits first, says his Riv'rence; and 
then put in the sugar; and remember, every dhrop 
of wather you put in after that spoils the punch." 

"Glory be to God! says the Pope, not minding a 
word Father Tom was saying. Glory be to God! 
says he, smacking his lips. I never knew what dhrink 
was afore, says he. It bates Lachrymal chrystal 
out of the face ! says he, it's Nechthar itself, it is, so 
it is! says he, wiping his epistolical mouth wid the 
cuff ov his coat." 

4. Gin (42 to 58 per cent, of alcohol), from genever, 
juniper, was first made in 1684 at Schiedam, Nether- 
lands. This distillate of rye and barley was originally 



138 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

flavored with juniper berries, afterward coriander 
seeds, angelica root, orris root, calamus root, and 
orange peel were added. It has since been falsified 
with oil of juniper and adulterated with bitter almond 
cake, oil of turpentine, alum or a lead salt to clarify 
it when much watered, capsicum, grains of paradise, 
guinea pepper and other acrid substances and sugar 
to disguise them. Such liquor, sold in the so-called 
gin palaces of London, has been productive of many 
hob-nail livers. Gin drinking makes men gloomy, 
surly, and sour. Old Tom gin is much liked by 
"topers," but "Hollands" was the favorite beverage 
of the ancient Dutchmen of Chestnutville, cold with 
sugar in summer, and as hot sling in winter. The 
Garrick Club gin punch was rendered famous by 
Theodore Hook who on one occasion before dinner 
absorbed a whole brew which consisted of half a 
pint of gin poured on the outer peel of a lemon, a 
little lemon juice, a glass of maraschino, about a pint 
and a quarter of water, and two bottles of iced soda 
water, the result being three pints of punch. This 
bears some similitude but no equality to the Ameri- 
can gin fizz. 

5. Arrack arack, rack, arrack-mewah, arrack-tuba; 
these strong distillates of rice, barley, peaches, dates, 
cocoa and other palm saps, variously aromatised, are 
produced in the Orient, principally in the Philippine 
Islands, in Batavia, Tourkestan, and Persia. 

6. Vodka, a very strong rye or potato distillate, 
is the drink of the Russian peasantry. It contains 



DISTILLED LIQUORS 139 

enough fusel oil to sicken any tramp of to-day who 
would dare to drink a gill of the vile "rot-gut" as it 
is called by sailors. An alcoholic drink made of 
fermented rice, known as watky, and another distilled 
from a sweet herb, called Statkaiatrava, are used in 
Kamstchatka. 

7. Sake, (pronounced sakkeh) a distillate from the 
yeasty liquid in which boiled rice has fermented for 
many days under pressure, is the national tipple of 
the Japanese, who drink it warm as the Greeks and 
Romans were wont to take their wines. The first 
distillation is the common potation whilst the recti- 
fied spirit is rarely used as a beverage. 

8. Sam-shoo, meaning thrice fired, is a Chinese 
distillate, the same as rectified sake, but dark amber 
colored and containing from thirty-three to fifty per 
centum of ethylic alcohol. 

9. Tepache, a distillate from corn or grapes, is the 
favorite drink in Chihuahua, Mexico. 

10. Agua-ardiente, distilled from pulque, is the 
well-known intoxicant in Mexico and Central America. 

11. Arza, distilled from fermented mare's milk, is 
the strong drink used by Tartars and Kalmucks. 

12. Bland, distilled from fermented skimmed milk, 
is the tipple of the Shetland Islanders. 

Many other alcoholic beverages, not mentioned on 
this occasion, are used and abused by civilised nations. 

13. The alcoholic cordials are almost too many to 
record in this brief review; a few only need therefore 
be named, viz. Kirschenwasser, Zwetschenwasser, 



140 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Holerca, Sekis-Kayavodka, Slivovitza, Troster, Rakia, 
Noyaux, Creme-de-Cacao, Crtme-de-Mocha, Creme-de- 
The, Cr&me de Menthe, Parf ait-amour, Elixir de Garus, 
Cherry Bounce, Maraschino, Curacoa, Chartreuse, 
Benedictine, Anisette, and Absinth which contains 
from 62 to 75 per cent, of alcohol. 

Cordials are said to have been invented for the use 
of Louis the XIV in his old age. While these bev- 
erages became the fashion during the last years of 
the Grand Monarque, they surely were known and 
used long before his time both as agreeable drinks 
and as valuable medicinal agents. 

Notwithstanding the wail of teetotallers, the Ameri- 
can nation is comparatively moderate in the use of in- 
toxicating beverages as shown in a recent statement 
of the British Board of Trade to the following effect. 
The annual consumption, per capita, 

OP SPIRITS OP WINE OP BEER 

In Engl'd. . 1.12 gals. In-Engl'd. .9.39 gals. In Engl'd. .31.7 gals. 

In France .. 2.02 " In France 25.40 " In France . .6.2 " 

InGerm'y- .1.94 " In Germ'y .1.45 " In Germ'y .25.5 " 

In the U.S.. 1.06 " In the U.S. 0.33 " In the U.S. 13.3 " 



*jA-* J ^ , (fi /^ 

*J.Sf 






X 

VII. TEA INFUSION 

"Sir . . . we are indebted to China for the four princi- 
pal blessings we enjoy. Tea came from China, the compass 
came from China, printing came from China, and gunpowder 
came from China — thank God!" * 

Ye lovers of wholesome and palatable drinks, pray 
give indulgent heed to this discourse in continuation 
of the discussion on beverages. That your forbear- 
ance be not too sorely taxed by the tedium of a de- 
tailed statement of Mongol commerce, of botanical 
characters, or of hieroglyphic sah poetry these super- 
fluities will be omitted from the introduction of the 
subject which shall consist of brief notes on the his- 
tory, culture, properties, and uses of the agricultural 
product known as tea in this country; the in France; 
thee in Germany; te in Italy and Spain; cha in 
Portugal; chai in Russia, Turkey, and Persia; tsja in 
Japan; and te, cha, sah, tsa, etc., in China. After the 
proposed short preliminary historical summary and 
the presentation of this intricate question of tea 
imbibition at home, by genuine lovers of the savory 
infusion as well as by pharisaical prohibitionists or 
by garrulous, decayed, frumpish, female misanthro- 
pists, and abroad by scabby, leprous, fiendish, opium 
saturated heathens, you will be expected to illuminate 
the dark side of the question in your own happy vein. 

* Sayings of Dr. Bushwhacker. 
141 



142 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

At the word tea, the index of the antiquarian's 
mental compass is directed eastwardly, as it so often 
is to suggest the origin of many earthly things. Sage 
investigators speak with awful eloquence of the bane- 
ful effects of the Orient's polluted waters; tell how, 
by long suffering and cruel experiences, man rendered 
them potable and salubrious by the simple process of 
ebullition; and attribute the beginning of tea-drink- 
ing to the necessity of rendering boiled water palatable 
by means of artificial flavoring, not with spices as 
did the Greeks, but by infusing the scrolled and 
parched leaves of the evergreen shrub tea which com- 
bines savor with stimulation and nourishment. 

Of the origin of its name, little seems to be known. 
In his Dictionary of the Amoy vernacular, Professor 
Douglas says — "The word tea is derived from the 
name of the plant which is te." — Whether this was 
inspired by the revered Mr. J. Bunsby the author does 
not say. In other parts of the Empire it is called 
cha, ts'a, etc., but this author does not give the real 
derivation of te, cha, or tsa. Linnaeus named the 
shrub Thea Chinensis; Linklater, Camellia Thea; 
and Griffith, Camellia Theifera. "The (other) names 
by which the tea of the thea chinensis is known to the 
Chinese," says Balfour, "viz. Ming, Ku-tu or Ku-cha, 
Kia, Tu, . . . show that several shrubs have 
furnished that country at various times with the tea 
leaf in use at different periods or places . . . and 
Ming ... is often put on tea boxes." 

Indian mythology accounts for the origin of tea as 



TEA INFUSION 143 

follows: " Dharma, a Hindoo Prince, went on a pilgri- 
mage to China, vowing he would never take rest by 
the way; but he once fell asleep and, on awaking, 
was so angry with himself, that he cut off his eyelids 
and flung them on the ground. These sprang up in 
the form of tea shrubs; and he who drinks the in- 
fusion thereof imbibed the juice of the eyelids of 
Dharma." 

Tea appears to have been known in China in 350 
A. D., but was not in general use until the beginning 
of the ninth century when, according to Siebold, it 
was imported from Korea. In his "Relation des 
voyages faits par les Arabes et les Persans dans Vlnde 
et a la Chine dans le neuvieme siecle, Paris 1845," 
Reinaud writes of certain Arabs and Persians who 
had travelled in India and China and given an account 
of a plant called sakh (supposed to be the same as 
tea), said to be largely sold in the Chinese towns; the 
leaves of this plant being used in infusion, both as an 
agreeable beverage and a medicinal agent. In the 
year 1285 says Fliieckiger, tea was subject to a taxa- 
tion in the Chinese province of Kiang-si. It is evi- 
dent that the plant was originally of northern habitat, 
but the Chinese succeeded in acclimating it in the 
south, so that in the beginning of the fifteenth cen- 
tury not less than nine of their central and southern 
provinces are mentioned as cultivating this shrub on a 
large scale. 

In Japan the use of tea infusion as a beverage has 
been traced back to 729 A. D., but the cultivation 



144 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

of the plant does not appear to have been greatly 
extended until the fifteenth century. 

In 1550 an account of the use of tea among the 
Chinese and Mongols was given at Venice by a Per- 
sian merchant, and during the same century the Jesuit 
missionaries to China and Japan reported upon tea- 
drinking in these countries. Balfour speaks of the 
Portuguese Texeira who, about the year 1600, saw the 
dried leaves of tea at Malacca; and Olearius is men- 
tioned by this author and also by Fliieckiger as having 
drunk tea in 1637 at Ispahan, and of speaking of its 
use among the Persians who, long before, had obtained 
the leaves from China through the medium of Uzbak 
traders. In 1600 Father Matteo Ricci, the founder 
of the mission to China, sent tea to Europe and made 
known some of its properties. Although as early as 
1602 the Dutch East India Company began its im- 
portation,* tea did not reach England until 1650. 
It had already become known in France through the 
Chancellor Seguier in 1636, but the addition of milk 
to the infusion (the-au-lait) was not used until 1680 
when Madame de Sevigne wrote of this as an inven- 
tion of Madame de la Sabliere.t Throughout western 



* Some French writers assert that the Dutch obtained their 
first samples of tea in exchange for sage, whose infusion was so 
much used medicinally in Europe, and whose virtues had been 
so greatly extolled by the Salernian School; while ah English 
authority says that the Dutch exchanged one pound of sage 
for every three pounds of Chinese tea, and suggested that prob- 
ably each barterer thought the other cheated. 

f Mention of that distinguished lady's name is remindful of 
a clever epigram which she made on Lafontaine who, despite 



TEA INFUSION 145 

Europe tea infusion was at first used as a medicinal 
agent and, in England, did not become a fashionable 
beverage until Katherine of Braganza, the Queen of 
Charles II, introduced at court this drink, a fondness 
for which she had acquired in Portugal. As a me- 
dicinal agent, tea was highly esteemed in Germany, 
from the year 1657, and the official price-lists of drugs 
for 1662, in the principality of Liegnitz, contained 
the item "Herba schak" (tea) fifteen gulden for "a 
handful." 

Tea does not seem to have become known to the 
Russians until 1638 when a Moscovite embassador 
to China brought some, as a present to the Czar, from 
Gobclo, now called Kobdo, a district of western 
Outer Mongolia close to the Siberian frontier. 

"The tea plant," says Balfour, "is multiplied by 
seed like the hawthorn and therefore the produce 
cannot be identical in every respect with the parent. 
Instead, therefore, of having one or two botanical 
varieties of tea plant in China, there are in fact many 
kinds although the difference between them may be 

his quick perception of the ridiculous, his keen observation of 
the ways of men, and beasts, his admirable fables, full of deep 
philosophy, abounding in charming allegory, judiciously tinc- 
tured with wholesome satire, and told in such simple and beau- 
tiful, poetical language, was not gifted with the art of small 
talk, too generally pleasing in society, and therefore did not 
shine as a bel-esprit. Once, during a tete-a-tete, his kind friend and 
admirer, Madame de la Sabliere could not resist the impulse of 
saying to him: "En verite, mon cher Lafontaine, vous seriez 
bien bete, si vous n'aviez pas tant d'esprit." About a century 
later a critical writer said that the expression would be as true, 
seriously, by inverting it as follows : " Vous n'auriez pas tant 
d'esprit si vous n'etiez pas si bete." 



146 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

slight. The seeds ... are gathered year after 
year in different climates, and in the course of time the 
plants in one district slightly differ from those of 
another although they may have been originally pro- 
duced from the same stock." . . . The sprouts, 
when four inches high, are planted two feet apart. 
"Hilly ground, as affording good drainage, is better 
adapted for the growth of the plant than flat ground." 

The first crop is gathered in three years. If the 
shrub is stripped of its leaves while younger, this 
may be fatal to future crops, as it would be if no 
crop was gathered at the end of three years. Three 
crops are collected yearly, the first in April, the sec- 
ond in May, and the third in June. The shrubs are 
not entirely stripped, otherwise they soon would be 
exhausted. The best are the youngest leaves. In 
ten years or even less the shrubs are unproductive 
and cut down to the stems from which new shoots and 
leaves sprout in time for the next year's crop. 

Thea viridis thrives in the northern provinces; 
not so the thea Bohea which is cultivated in the south- 
ern provinces; but both green and black tea are pro- 
duced from either of these species, the color depending 
upon the mode of treatment of the leaves before and 
during the drying process. 

The Chinese teas are classed commercially in accord- 
ance with their quality, and are further divided into 
green and black teas. Chinese merchants reckon at 
least one hundred and fifty sorts, of which the follow- 
ing are the principal qualities known in trade : 



TEA INFUSION 147 

GREEN TEAS BLACK TEAS 

Hyson or He-chun Pekoe or Pak-ho 

Hyson jr., or Yu-tseen Orange Pekoe 

Hyson-schoulang Black Pekoe or Hung-muey 

Gunpowder or Chou-cha Koang-foo or congon 

Imperial Pouchong or Paou-chung 

Tonkay or Tun-ke Souchong or Scaou-chung 

Hyson-skin Ning-Yong 
Oolong 

Fifty years ago China exported nearly sixty millions 
pounds of tea, and the yearly export had increased to 
more than two hundred and fifty millions of pounds 
up to fifteen years ago, since which time it seems to 
have decreased on account of the fast increasing 
product of the immense plantations in Japan, For- 
mosa, India, and other countries; India alone yield- 
ing more than a hundred millions of pounds in 1890. 
Many of the Ceylon coffee plantations having failed, 
owing to injury of the plant by the parasitic fungus 
Hemileia Vastatrix, the coffee borer and the coffee 
bug, tea was planted on the island as an experiment, 
and in 1867 the first tea gardens scarcely covered ten 
acres of ground, but in less than fifteen years the 
acreage of tea had reached ten thousand. At the 
present time the yield of excellent tea in Ceylon is 
immense, and the leaf is to be found in every civilised 
country. 

In 1828 the Dutch introduced the tea plant into 
Java where it has thriven so that large quantities of 
the leaves are now sent annually to Holland from 
extensive tea gardens. 

Formosa has, for many years, produced superior 



148 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

qualities of teas which are much esteemed in this 
country. 

Among the inferior teas are those of Amoy and 
Cochin China. 

Early in this century tea was cultivated in Brazil, 
but its culture soon abandoned for coffee. (Fletcher 
& Kidder.) It is cultivable in California, Texas, and 
some southern states. 

The best teas, among them the genuine Yen Pou- 
chong, are said never to leave China; first, because 
small quantities only are produced, just enough for 
the use of the rich; secondly, because they are too 
moist to bear exportation; and thirdly, because they 
are all pre-empted by the mandarins; bringing from 
seven to ten dollars per pound. 

Next in excellence to mandarin teas are those 
brought by caravan to Russia and consumed by the 
wealthy nobles. These teas bring, in Moscow, and 
St. Petersburg, from eight to ten, or even twelve, 
dollars per pound. 

It is only a few years ago that certain Chinese teas, 
gathered from young bud-leaves and prepared with 
great care, were sold in this country at public auction 
for twenty-nine dollars and resold privately at fifty 
dollars per pound. 

Ordinary good tea from Formosa and Ceylon bring 
from seventy-five cents to one dollar per pound, and 
some blends bring five dollars and even more. 

Many nations use infusions of leaves, stems, or 
flowers of divers plants as beverages bearing the name 



TEA INFUSION 149 

of tea, some of which have similar properties to the 
thea chinensis whilst others are entirely different. 
In Mexico, and Central and South America, infusions 
of the leaves of Psoralea Glandulosa, Alstonia Thece- 
formis, Symplocos Alstonia, Gaultheria Procumbens, 
and Ledum Latifolium are used as teas. In Para- 
guay the beverage called mate is an infusion of Ilex 
Paraguay ensis, of Ilex Gongonha, or of Ilex Theaizans. 
In India a tea beverage is made of stalks of lemon 
grass, Andropogon Citratus; and the "tea of heaven," 
a common drink in Japan is obtained from leaves of 
Hydrangea Thunbergi. Faham tea of the Mauritius is 
said to be made with the orchid Angrwcum Fragrans. 
New Jersey tea is the astringent herb known as 
Ceanothus Americanus (Balfour), and the Monarda 
Didyma is commonly called Oswego tea. 

Roasted coffee leaves, which contain a large per- 
centage of caffein (thein) have been substituted for 
tea and largely consumed for a long time in Sumatra 
and Java, where this coffee tea can be produced for 
about two cents per pound.* 

Many more plants, the leaves of which have been 
and are used, medicinally or otherwise, under the name 
of tea, might have been added to this list, but the 
statement already made suffices to emphasize that 
thea chinensis is the chief plant that properly should 
bear the title of tea. 

The following excerpt serves to show that the tea 
plant is cultivable in this country. 

* See Daniel Hanbury's " Science Papers," 1876. 



150 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

"J. M. Hodnet, a progressive farmer living near 
Lilac on the dividing line between Milam and Wil- 
liamson counties, Texas, says that the Chinese tea 
plant grows luxuriantly on his farm, even in the fence 
corners, and requires no cultivation, save being kept 
free from weeds. The plants come up voluntarily 
every year, spread rapidly and by the uninitiated 
would often be mistaken for noxious weeds. As an 
experiment Mr. Hodnet imported the seed several 
years ago from Oriental China through our Am- 
bassador. He now gathers the leaves, dries and uses 
them in making a most palatable tea, almost if not 
quite equal to the imported product."* 

The analysis of tea shows it to be composed of 
tannin in varying proportions, of gum, of glucose, of 
a volatile oil, of a fatty acid, of a special yellow acid, 
of green and yellow coloring matters, of pectine, of 
a nitrogenous substance closely approaching chemi- 
cally the casein of milk, and of another nitrogenous 
principle which is crystal lizable into colorless and 
tasteless delicate needles. This alkaloidal principle 
was discovered and named thein in 1827 by Oudry, 

* The cultivation of tea, which has been for some years car- 
ried on experimentally by Dr. C. U. Shepard, at Summerville, 
S. C, now bids fair to develop into a commercial success greatly 
to the advantage of the agriculture of the South. According to 
the "Charleston News and Courier," capitalists are now buying 
thousands of acres of land near the city, and their plans contem- 
plate the production of something like 300,000 pounds of tea 
annually for the American market. The gentlemen who are 
actively interested in the enterprise are Col. A. C. Tyler, of New 
London, Conn., Major R. D. Trimble, of the same place, and 
Baron J. A. von Brunig, of Washington, formerly a member of 
the German legation. — From American Gardening, Feb'y 9, 1901. 



TEA INFUSION 151 

the French chemist. The chemical formula of thein 
is C 8 H 10 N 4 O 2 , and its denomination is trimethylxan- 
thin. Good tea contains from two to three per cen- 
tum of thein while mate contains from y 1 ^- of one to 
|4f P er centum of matein which is chemically iden- 
tical with thein. This time the Bon Dieu "went back 
on" Monsieur, for thein turned out to be chemically 
identical with caffein discovered by Runge in 1820; 
this identity having been confirmed by Jobst and 
Muler in 1828. 

It is known that the aroma of tea does not pre-exist 
in the fresh leaves but is developed through the action 
of heat in the preparation of these leaves, just as the 
roasting coffee beans, of meats, and of other comesti- 
bles so materially changes their odor and savor as to 
render them highly palatable. 

The lettered Chinese, Lo Yu, who flourished about 
a thousand years ago, in the Tang dynasty, seems to 
have been a great lover of tea, for he spoke of the 
effects of its infusion in terms of high commenda- 
tion, saying that "it tempers the spirit, and har- 
monises the mind; dispels lassitude and relieves 
fatigue; awakens thought and prevents drowsiness; 
lightens or refreshens the body and clears the per- 
ceptive faculties." 

Among the principles of tea which act upon the 
nervous system are chiefly the volatile oil and the 
thein. The volatile oil, tannic acid and extractives 
are found in larger proportion in green tea, while 
thein is said to be twice as abundant in black as in 



152 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

green tea. The astringency of tea is due principally 
to the tannin it contains. The inferior teas are much 
more astringent and less excitant than the finer 
qualities, owing to their greater proportion of tan- 
nin and lesser proportion of thein and of volatile 
oil. 

The teetotallers, needing stimulation as much as 
do other mortals, find it in tea drinking which has 
been proved a decided exhilarant and even a mild in- 
toxicant when taken in excess. Used in moderation, 
this excellent beverage is as beneficial as the Chinese 
philosopher found it a thousand years ago, while its 
abuse not only disturbs the nervous equilibrium but 
seriously impairs the digestive process. Its ill effects 
were, however, greatly exaggerated by Balzac in his 
article on Modern Excitants. He was an invet- 
erate coffee drinker and was consequently taking 
large quantities of caffein which is identical with 
thein. 

Tea infusion is very largely the beverage of the 
hundreds of millions of human beings in Siberia, 
Korea, the Chinese Empire, Japan, and India. It 
is the common drink of the Russians among whom 
the samovar's water is ever boiling, and who often 
take their tea iced with the addition of a slice of 
lemon. It is said that the brick-teas are sometimes 
eaten after being chopped and mixed with salt and 
butter or koumys, or with the addition of boiling 
water to the butter or koumys, are taken as a soup 
by Tartars and Tibetans. The Dutch and English 



TEA INFUSION 153 

consume an enormous amount of tea, as is the case 
with those nations that do not cultivate the grape- 
vine; beer and tea being their principal beverages. 

Explorers of frigid regions use tea infusion prefer- 
ably to other beverages because it is easily prepared 
and is, as they believe, sufficiently stimulating. 
They prefer it to coffee partly because it is more 
easily prepared, and they condemn the use of alcohol 
during their expeditions, except medicinally. 

Tea lovers do not generally acid sugar or cream to 
this delicious drink, and professional tasters seldom 
do so. Nor do they "wet the tea," as it is termed, 
but infuse it in boiling water and in a minute or two 
proceed with their test, which is first to inhale some 
of the vapor from the infused leaves, and then to take 
a mouthful of the infusion. The reason why they do 
not simply wet the leaves and throw away the water 
is that they wish to determine by taste the astringency 
of the tea due to the contained tannin, besides its 
other properties. The best teas need no wetting, 
but the ordinary kinds require this preliminary pro- 
cess to rid the leaves of their excess of tannin. When 
two cups of tea are to be made, the dry leaves are put 
in an earthen tea-pot which must be hot, and half 
a cup of boiling water poured in, and the whole 
shaken rapidly two or three times, when the water 
is immediately thrown off, and the infusion made by 
the desired quantity of boiling water. The working 
people who want something "searching and puckery" 
prefer a tea which is rich in tannin and which they 



154 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

allow to infuse until it acquires its wonted degree 
of bitterness and astringency. 

The following tales, being pertinent to tea drink- 
ing, may suggest to you matter more enlivening than 
this too technical dissertation. 

An illustrious soldier, fatigue worn, thirsty and 
hungry, arriving at a farm-house where he was well 
known, asked for a drink of tea. The hostess, being 
anxious to treat her guest becomingly, brought forth 
the daintiest morsels at command and herself pre- 
pared the drink with what was then called long 
sweetening. Now, said she, is the tea quite to your 
taste? Are you sure it is right? Do tell me if there 
is anything amiss. — Since you insist, let me say that 
it is rather sweet. — 0, dear me, General, if it was all 
lasses it wouldn't be any too sweet for you. 

At a boarding-house kept by one of those reduced 
cultivated ladies, with a glorious past, a dim present, 
and fervent hope for a bright future, a newly arrived 
grave and silent guest was asked mincingly — Will you 
have any condiments in your tea, sir? Looking 
blandly toward the smiling widowed hostess, and 
without semblance of irony in his tone, the sedate 
man replied — Salt and pepper, madam, if you please, 
but no mustard. — Although the laughter was at the 
expense of the good lady, she was right in her use of 
the term, for the cream and sugar ordinarily added to 
the cup of tea infusion are, strictly, true condi- 
ments which render the tea more relishable to many 
persons. 



TEA INFUSION 155 

HOW TO MAKE A CUP OF TEA. 

BY AN OLD OFFICER OF THE NAVY. 

"I have spent much time in China and Japan," 
says Commodore X, "have enjoyed their delicious 
infusion in Hongkong and in Yokohama tea-houses, 
have long watched its simple preparation, and finally 
settled upon a way which seemed to me preferable 
to the Eastern methods. The tea must be of ex- 
cellent quality, the porcelain vessel for its infusion 
hot, the cups and saucers well heated, and the water 
kept constantly at the boiling point. After due ob- 
servance of these essential requirements, put one 
drachm of tea leaves into the infusing receptacle, 
pour in four ounces of boiling water, shake briskly 
three or four times and throw out the water. The 
superfluous tannin having been washed away from the 
leaves by this process, eight ounces of boiling water 
may now be poured in, the vessel well covered, and 
the tea infused for five or six minutes when it will 
be ready for drinking plain, diluted to taste, or 
moderately sweetened. The addition of a dessert- 
spoonful of cream is no detriment whatever to the 
beverage. The Orientals and many Americans prefer 
the plain drink. With or without condiments, a 
good cup of tea is enjoyable in all seasons and does 
all for man that Lo Yu has promised. The Russian 
iced-tea with a thimbleful of rum or brandy is a 
summer drink fit for the Olympian Gods." 



XI 



VIII. COFFEE INFUSION 

" Coffee which makes the politician wise, 
And see thro' all things with his half shut eyes." 

Convivial Readers, — Knowing your great fondness 
for the fragrant, nutritious, and invigorating swarthy 
infusion of certain parched and pounded Abyssinian 
grains now known as coffee, the writer ventures to 
lay before you for examination several differing ver- 
sions and legends relating to the discovery and prop- 
erties of these coffee or cuffa grains, and will expect 
you to believe implicitly every one of them, for they 
are all as true as the Koran, as instructive as the 
Zend Avesta, and as entertaining as the thousand 
and one nights' tales! The authorities cited seem to 
have derived their information from very ancient and 
trustworthy sources, notably from the astute and 
veridical Iskender ben Ali ben Mustapha ben Dara 
who was an inveterate drinker of cafe-noir, which he 
believed to be a powerful stimulant, stomachic, he- 
patic, peristaltic, and neurotic, besides being an 
efficient arouser of the tender emotions. The follow- 
ing short abstracts of these versions and legends are 
noted for your special delectation. 

1. When the pugnacious David and the gushing 
young and recent widow Abigail enjoyed their first 

156 



COFFEE INFUSION 157 

tete-a-tete, after a sumptuous supper, instead of a 
petit-verre of parfait-amour or of maraschino, each 
took a mouthful and then several demie-tasses of a dark 
black infusion which made them glad, wakeful, strong 
and friskful. Judging from its immediate and sub- 
sequent effects upon the happy couple, this black 
beverage could not possibly have been other than a 
strong infusion of roasted and pounded coffee grains, 
although a meddlesome, garrulous, tedious, cavilling, 
cynical censor boldly asserted that the drink in ques- 
tion was only a decoction of parched kidney beans 
fortified by a potent damianal philter. The dog- 
matical dictum of that ancient, mouldy, Fadladeenish 
critic is of no value whatsoever and there is not the 
least shadow of doubt of the great antiquity of coffee 
drinking, notwithstanding the silence of Don Fulano 
y Mengano de Pergano on the interesting incident in 
the life of the polygamous gynephilic patriarch men- 
tioned by Oytis.* 

2. The epicure, in sipping sable nectar from his 
after-dinner demie-tasse, is ever reminded of his great 
obligation to the illustrious culinary artist who first 
conceived the brilliant idea of parching the grains 
to develop their aroma and thus render coffee infusion 
so delicious. Many deipnosophistic archaeologists had 
for several scores of years, sought in vain to ascertain 
the date of the invention and the title of the inventor 

* "Thy promised boon, O Cyclop! now I claim 
And plead my title; Noman is my name." 

The strict meaning of Oytis, however, is nobody. 



158 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

of coffee roasting; but so soon as Iskender announced 
that he had discovered the inventor to be King 
David's chef -de-cuisine, these sages all declared that 
they had always thought so, but were awaiting more 
evidence before making known their conclusion! 
. . . The King, as is the wont of the great and 
mighty, failed to reward his faithful servant for the 
forever-to-be-remembered luxurious blessing con- 
ferred upon his royal highness and consort, as well 
as upon the thousands of millions of coffee drinkers 
yet unborn. Alas for the fate of innovators and the 
"gratitude" of monarchs and of free governments! 

3. You will doubtless recall to mind how eloquently 
a certain aged troubadour — recorder of the exploits 
of a shrewd and enterprising Hellenic soldier of for- 
tune by profession and rollicking planet promenader 
by compulsion — lauded in sublime verse the delight- 
ful effects of the hypnotic substance nepenthes. Why 
should he not have done so, since nepenthes added to 
wine was then the infallible potion to make man 
oblivious of care and ills? However, some modern 
heavy bibbers speak contemptuously of the ancient 
beverage, alleging that it is fit only for chicks, inferior 
to haschish paste, and not comparable to "brown- 
stout" which is both meat and drink besides having 
no little hypnotic value. But these notions were 
evidently not in accord with those of the downy 
brained son of Gallia who, with distorted mental 
vision and utter ignorance of the effects of banes, 
regarded nepenthes as identical with the gladsome 



COFFEE INFUSION 159 

non-intoxicating infusion of coffee beans. This gra- 
tuitous assertion of the croaking, loquacious batra- 
chopolitan, made in the most bold, blatant, and boast- 
ful gasconish tone, has led to an acrimonious contro- 
versy with the defacement of scores of thousands of 
foolscap sheets of wood pulp; and the fierce dispute 
is not yet ended! 

4. A very interesting accomplished scholar and pro- 
found Hellenist, but senior inmate of one of those 
homes for the entertainment of persons whose eccen- 
tricities render them unsafe to themselves and friends, 
often, in magisterial and lofty style, expressed the 
opinion that the black Spartan broth * was neither 
more nor less than coffee infusion. Although some 
of his auditors were dubious as to his thorough 
knowledge of beans, none, in his presence, seemed 
willing to give expression to his doubts. 

5. Fackhir Eddin el Mardiny records that the 
legion of devils which entered the bodies of the drove 
of trichinous pigs that went swimming in the Tiberian 
sea had taken the form of unripe coffee berries which, 
gulped in great abundance into the jejune entrails 
of these gluttonish swine, so affected their inward 
peristalsis that, for immediate relief they frantically 
dove into the surging waters to be soon seized with 

* "The Turks have a drink called coffee (for they use no wine), 
so named of a berry as black as soot, and as bitter (like that 
black drink which was in use amongst the Lacedaemonians, and 
perhaps the same), which they sip still off, and sup as warm 
as they can suffer; they spend much time in those Coffee-houses, 
which are somewhat like our Ale-houses or Taverns ..." 
— Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy. 



160 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

general cramps and so to perish with a bellyful of 
diabolically indigestible berries. It appears that this 
abominable tale was originally told by an irreverent, 
malignant and turbaned Turk who was condemned 
to impalement for his crass ignorance of demonology 
and botany, as well as of the habitat of pigs and of 
the digestive aptitude of the porcine stomach* 

6. The big medicine man Abou-Bekr-Mohammed- 
Ben-Zacharia, named at first Zacharia al Razi be- 
cause he was born at Ray in Persia; the Raysian 
becoming Rases or Rhazes, who, in the ninth century, 
practised upon the ailing multitudes of Arabia, was 
in the habit of administering coffee infusion as a pana- 
cea, a sovereign remedy for all distempers, and he was 
the first faithful follower of the Prophet to make 
known to the world the wonderful medicinal virtues 
of coffee. 

7. Two centuries later, another disciple of the great 
Apollo, one Al-Houssain-Abou-Ali-Ben-Abdullab-Ebn- 
Sina, vulgarly called Avicenna, procured from El- 
Yemen (Arabia Felix) beans of this same coffee, 
roasted and pounded them, and made thereof a strong 
infusion of which he drank freely with much pleasure 
and satisfaction and called it bunchum. 

* Papa Arouet was wrong in his assertion that there were no 
pigs near the sea of Tiberius, for the unorthodox Gadarenes, 
who abided near its easterly shore, did, contrary to the Mosaic 
prohibition, domesticate swine and did eat the flesh thereof. 
Another bit of testimony has been offered of the existence of 
hogs in the holy land, as follows: 

" Augustus Caesar said of Herod the Great that he would rather 
be his sus than suus — for Herod killed his own and not his pigs." 



COFFEE INFUSION 161 

8. The antiquarian, Altman von Schwartzwasser, 
insists that the first individual, outside of Germania, 
to drink habitually coffee infusion out of a stein mug, 
was the Mollah Shaduli; while Herr Professor Hein- 
rich Apollonius Richter von Katznellenbogen und 
Schweinberg, a great authority on date palms and 
the dative case, asserts that it was the Scheik Omar 
who, in the year 656 of the Hegira (1278 A. D.) having 
taken refuge with his followers in the Ousab moun- 
tains, found there nothing to eat but coffee berries 
which made him and his men wakeful of nights, so 
they were able to do efficient guard duty. Waxing 
powerful in the wilderness, they made a raid upon 
their old home, where, however, they were received 
warmly and joyfully. In acknowledgment, Omar 
made known to his compatriots the properties of 
coffee and the delightful effects of its infusion. 

9. The wise, learned and venerable Aboul Hadji 
Effendi, speaks in glowing terms of the exploits of 
the untiring Arabian peregrinator Jemal-Eddin- 
Dhabhani who, says that author in his voluminous 
treatise on men and things in general and in particu- 
lar, attributed the discovery of coffee and its effects 
upon beast and man to a singular incident, as follows : 

A certain goat-herd's slumbers were much dis- 
turbed ever since he had driven his flock to the edge 
of a forest near which was a Dervish community, 
owing to the nightly revels of his beasts that, in the 
company of some stray sheep, seemed to be enjoying 
a capronic cotillion lasting until the break of day, 



162 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

with attendant bleatings and other noises of the 
frisky creatures. In his perplexity to ascertain the 
cause of these nocturnal frolics, he applied to the chief 
of the community, who promised his aid toward un- 
ravelling the mystery. The good Dervish closely 
watched the animals and one evening followed them 
a short distance in the forest, when he saw them feed- 
ing on the red berries and leaves of certain low trees. 
The shrewd and canny old man gathered a basketful 
of the fruit, which he boiled; then he drank some of 
the decoction after supper, and for that whole night 
was not only wakeful but inclined to unwonted bodily 
and mental activity. Attributing these phenomena 
to the potion he had taken, he concluded that he had 
made a discovery likely to be precious to his com- 
munity. Keeping his secret he advised the peasant 
to take away his herd because he regarded the air of 
the forest and region as insalubrious to horned cattle. 
Every day thereafter with the noon refection he ad- 
ministered a large bowl of the decoction to each mem- 
ber of the Brotherhood as an unfailing remedy for 
drowsiness and indolence. 

10. It is further related by Aboul Hadji that, in 
1420 A. D. this same Jemal Eddin, in his wanderings, 
straggled into the country of Persia where he found 
the people enjoying coffee infusion, and that he had 
there learned the use of this anhypnotic beverage. 
On his return to Aden he taught the sleepy townsmen 
how to keep awake by drinking this infusion. From 
Aden the delights of coffee imbibing were made known 



COFFEE INFUSION 163 

to the people of Mecca, of Medina, of Mysore in India, 
and finally of Cairo in Egypt. 

11. It is written by Simon Ben Yusuf, or some 
other scribe, that the Sultan Selim I, he who, in 1517, 
organised a target excursion through Syria, Palestine 
and Egypt, received from Cairo, among many prizes, 
a large plated pewter mug filled with roasted coffee 
beans, the use of which he introduced to the Constan- 
tinopolitans. But the first public coffee house was 
not established in the great city until the year 1550, 
prior to which time the "heavy swells" only were able 
to bear the expense of a cup of the luxurious infusion. 

12. Still another Moslem writer of renown, Ibrahim 
el Kebir Mufti, says that coffee was brought to Mysore 
direct from Arabia by the notorious vagrant Baba- 
Booden, who accidentally found among his scanty 
habiliments seven stray grains which he carelessly 
flung away on a hillside and which have yielded great 
multitudes of coffee trees whose products were after- 
ward propagated throughout the Indies. 

Since you have read with so much patience and 
attention the foregoing truthful and convincing 
statement of the discovery and early history of coffee, 
kindly give a no less willing attention to the follow- 
ing which you may regard as fiction or not, as 
dictated by your sound judgment. 

13. The erudite Edbal Dar Woruf * Sahib, chief 
medicine man in Hindostan and learned in botany, 
supposes, as do other pandits, that the coffee tree had 

* Anagram of Edward Balfour. 



164 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

its original habitat in the mountain regions of Enarea 
and Cuff a or Kaffa to the south of Abyssinia. 

14. Edbal goes on to say that it was not until about 
the sixteenth centuiy that coffee was introduced into 
Arabia whence it passed into Mysore and Ceylon in 
the seventeenth century; into Mauritius and Bourbon 
Islands in 1718, and Batavia in 1723, and subsequent- 
ly into the West Indies. Abd-ul-Kadar-Mahommed- 
ul-Azari-ul-Jesiri-ul-Hanbali, who wrote in Egypt 
about 1587 A. D., relates that in the middle of the 
fifteenth century, Jamal-ud-Din-Abu-Abdulla-Ma- 
hommed-bin-Saced-ud-Dubani was Kadi of Aden, 
and having occasion to visit Abyssinia found his coun- 
termen there drinking coffee. On his return to Aden 
he there introduced its use, whence it passed into 
Arabia generally. He further says that Shaikh Ali- 
Shaduli-ibn-Omar settled near the sea about 1630 
A. D. on the plain now occupied by the town of 
Mocha, and his reputation drew people around him 
till a village was formed. He highly recommended 
the use of coffee and has ever since been regarded as 
the patron saint of Mocha. 

15. For a long series of years Arabia had the monop- 
oly on coffee culture and trade, but the crafty Dutch 
and the shrewd Brazilians and Central Americans 
have since driven Moslem coffee out of the American 
market. 

16. Rauwolf made coffee known in western Europe 
soon after his voyage to the Levant in 1583, but the 
use of the drink did not become general until the 



COFFEE INFUSION 165 

seventeenth century. Public coffee houses were not 
established in Italy until 1645, in London 1652, at 
Marseilles 1671, and in Paris 1672. Cafe-au-lait was 
introduced in 1690 by Madame de Sevigne. In Paris 
coffee was then sold at the rate of twenty-eight dol- 
lars per pound. Now, in this country, good roasted 
coffee is retailed at from twenty-five to thirty cents 
per pound, and the inferior qualities as low as ten 
cents per pound. 

17. The constituent elements of roasted coffee 
are: cellulose, dextrin, caffeic acid, caffeo-tannic 
acid, legumin, essential oils, caffeone, and caffein, 
which is the main active principle of coffee and has 
the formula C 8 H 10 N 4 O 2 , its chemical denomination 
being trimethylxanthin. Guarana, Kola nut, tea and 
mate have precisely the same active principle as cof- 
fee which contains from 2 to f-f^- per centum of 
caffein while guarana contains 5 per centum, Kola 
nut 2 to 2\, tea from 2 to 3, and mate j 1 -^- to ^§-| 
per centum of caffein. 

18. An infusion of raw coffee would be so intoler- 
ably bad as to be unfit to drink. The roasting of the 
grains completely changes their nature, and so 
develops their aroma, by the production of caffeone, 
as to render the infusion delightful alike in flavor 
and odor. The torrefaction causes the grains to 
become sufficiently friable to be easily and effectu- 
ally comminuted, but this torrefaction is a delicate 
process requiring experience to prevent carbonisation 
of the grains, which renders the infusion disagreeably 



166 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

bitter, nor should the grains be underdone as their 
centre would be practically raw. 

19. Nothing need be added to what the immortal 
poet Abou-Ben-Senar tells of the properties and effects 
of coffee infusion in his great poem on eastern bever- 
ages. He says that "Among the prodigious proper- 
ties and the happy effects of this sweetened swarthy 
water upon the faithful and the houries in the seventh 
heaven and elsewhere are : it helps digestion and is a 
potent peristaltic persuader; it cures the headache 
and prevents drowsiness; it brightens the intellect 
and inspires poetical thought; it equalises the circu- 
lation and invigorates the body; and it tones the 
heart and incites love." 

20. Heterogeneous substances in great numbers 
have been and still are used, more or less burned, to 
make a black beverage which, taken hot, goes under 
the name of coffee, and there are seven score and seven 
or more methods of preparing these many kinds of 
"coffee" for steady drinking, but only a few of them 
will now be mentioned. 

21. A woodman says that a pound of grilled and 
ground acorns or chestnuts, and an equal amount of 
finely chopped salt pork boiled for an hour in a gallon 
of hard cider, makes a coffee drink that warms the 
cockles of the laborer's heart. 

22. There was a rustic with economical turn of 
mind who, for his hired men, made " coffee" out of 
toasted corn cobs which otherwise would have gone 
to waste. Some of these hired men having detected 



COFFEE INFUSION 167 

him in the act, exacted the substitution of grains 
of corn, whilst others preferred cow-peas or sweet 
potatoes similarly treated and strengthened with 
Jersey lightning, and threatened a strike unless their 
demands were granted. The miserly yeoman had to 
succumb ! 

23. In lumber regions, parched sawdust is said to 
make strong " coffee" when boiled in whiskey and 
water, principally whiskey. 

24. The Kiowa Indians flavor their "coffee" with 
mescal buttons to give the drinkers glorious, brilliant 
color visions of the happy hunting grounds of Turey. 

25. The Guaranis Indian belles of Brazilian forests 
serve, at their five o'clock coffee-teas, a drink made 
of Paullinia Sorbilis seed ground between two hot 
stones and moistened to form a paste which is at once 
infused, or dried and preserved for use when desired. 
This dry paste, which appears in our market as hard, 
brittle cylinders, is known as guarana, and contains 
five per cent of guaranin which is identical with caffein. 

26. The South Sea Islanders use for their "coffee" 
baked and pounded cocoanut shells with long pig, 
and drink it hot and straight ; whilst the Eskimos and 
Laps luxuriate, without the aid of liquid air, in a 
cafe-frappe of walrus oil and lamp soot. 

27. Some web-footed nations daily imbibe many 
cups of an infusion of burned chicory root in the firm 
belief that they are drinking superfine coffee, and 
others make use of the grains of a species of holly, 
which when parched has the odor of coffee. 



168 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

28. The substance employed is merely a question 
of means or of taste. In many parts of the world 
very decided preference is given to an infusion of 
the parched and pounded grains of Coffea Arabica, 
or of any of its varieties, such as those of Mocha, 
Loanda, Java, Sumatra, Bourbon, Martinique, La 
Guayra, Maracaibo, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Rio de 
Janeiro, etc. 

HOW TO MAKE A CUP OF COFFEE. 

29. An eminent gourmet and a passionate amateur 
of coffee, very justly condemns the prevalent popular 
notions respecting the preparation of this excellent 
beverage unknown to the ancient poets, and so pre- 
cious to those moderns who may lack inspiration, 
saying that to grind coffee in a mill is a barbaric 
atrocity — it should be pounded in a hot porcelain 
mortar * while still hot from the roaster, and imme- 
diately used — that to boil coffee is a vandalistic in- 
congruity — it should be infused by percolation in a 
previously heated glazed-porcelain apparatus as soon 
as pounded, then poured into heated cups and drunk 
hot. To clarify coffee infusion with egg albumen is a 
monstrosity. The quantity of coffee to be infused 
should not be less than two ounces to the pint of 
boiling water for morning use, with hot milk and sugar, 
and stronger for the after-dinner cup. He further 
asserts that the most delicious of drinks is obtainable 

* The Turks pound their parched coffee in wooden mortars. 
The older the mortar the more precious. 



COFFEE INFUSION 169 

by the blending of three sorts of these grains; not, 
however, until after the roasting process, as some 
varieties require more time than others to effect the 
desired brittleness of the contained lignin. In his ex- 
perience the Loanda, Java, and Bourbon make a very 
satisfactory blend, as do the Martinique, La Guayra, 
and Costa Rica coffees, and regards the addition of 
chicory root powder as a gustatory abomination 
worthy of Huns and Goths.* 

30. The coffee tree — which is as tall as the lilac 
bush, not so lofty as the Araucaria Excelsa, greater 
in girth than the ilex, lesser circumferentially than 
the cedar of Lebanon, with not so much foliage as 
the chestnut, and more spread than the Lombardy 
poplar — is attacked (from root to bark, from stem to 
leaf, from fragrant white flower to cherry-like pur- 
plish fruit) by scores of different kinds of enemies, 
among which abound microbes and molds, larvae and 
butterflies, bugs and borers, birds and rodents. Yet 
it survives to yield its precious fruit and grains for 
the gratification of man and beast. The young leaves, 
rich in caffein which is the same chemically as thein, 
make good coffee-tea; the pulp of the berries gives, 
by fermentation, a coffee-wine and, by distillation, 
a coffee-brandy; the hard trunks of the old plants 
may be used by the cabinet maker; the larger twigs 

*It is reported that in 1897, in the United States, the consump- 
tion of coffee reached 636,000,000 pounds or more than forty 
pounds for each person. In the course of the past ten years the 
enormous sum of 875,000,000 of dollars was paid for the coffee 
consumed by our people. 



170 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

converted into walking sticks; the roots fashioned 
into various ornaments and into pipes for smoking 
tobacco; indeed, a house may be built of coffee-wood, 
and lastly a sarcophagus for the mortal remains of 
the departed tenant. 



XII 



IX. CHOCOLATE AND OTHER BROTHS 

" In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow, 
And tremble at the sea that froths below." 

Experts are agreed that broths be classed among 
beverages, although they contain much solid matter, 
which, however, is in a state of comminution and 
subjected to a more or less prolonged ebullition, and 
in some cases to fermentation. 

Let us now inquire into the nature of the plant that 
produces cacao beans with which one of the most 
highly nutritious broths is made. In this inquiry 
we are ably assisted by a veteran learned in Aztec 
lore, who probably had striven to read currently the 
world renowned calendar, who, after victory, had so 
gracefully resheathed his trusty sword and, quitting 
the tented field, had dwelt and dreamed in marble 
halls that once may have been Montezuma's, who 
had long known of the evil ways of the wily and 
cruel Hernando Cortez, and who had played so well 
his patriotic part toward the second but holy con- 
quest of Mexico which gave us California, together 
with the immense western territory called, by our 
fathers, the great American Desert. 

Modern historians and all well disciplined sopho- 
mores vouch for the accuracy of the statement that 

171 



172 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Columbus was the first white man to learn of cacao 
as a highly prized article of food, and also of its use 
as money in prehistoric Mexico, and that the illustri- 
ous Genoese had obtained from a cacique of Yucatan 
specimens of this precious food and money equiva- 
lent, while he was sailing along the coast of Hon- 
duras on his fourth and last voyage in 1502. They 
are also positive about the time of the interview 
in 1520 between the adventurer Cortez and the 
noble and good Aztec Emperor Xocoyotzin,* who 
offered the Spaniard a drink of chocolatl in a golden 
vessel which the ungrateful cleptomaniacal guest did 
probably purloin. 

Students of botany speak of the cacao tree, of the 
natural order Sterculiacese, as a native of south- 
eastern Mexico below the twentieth degree of latitude. 
They say that the tree best thrives in tropical regions 
within the fifteen degrees of north and south latitudes; 
that the cultivated plant grows from sea level to two 
thousand feet above in the alluvial soil of the valleys; 
that it is seldom over eighteen feet high and that the 
highest are the wild trees; that the beautiful, light 
green, glossy leaves average ten inches in length, 
three inches and a half in mean breadth, and are 
elliptic-oblong and acuminate, growing generally at 
the ends of branches but occasionally directly from 
the trunk; that the flowers, which are small, bloom 
in clusters on the larger branches and on the trunk 
itself; that each cluster yields a single fruit; that 

* Aztec for Montezuma. 



CHOCOLATE AND OTHEK BROTHS 173 

the ripe fruit from a trunk cluster looks as if it had 
been artificially pinned to the spot; that the matured 
fruit or pod is elliptical-ovoid in form, from seven to 
nine inches in length and from three to four inches in 
mean diameter, has a thick, tough, purplish yellow 
rind with ten longitudinal ribs; that this pod is di- 
vided into five long cells, each containing eight or 
ten beans embedded in a soft pinkish acid pulp; 
that the beans are irregularly ovoid, averaging one 
inch in length, five eighths of an inch in breadth, 
and three eighths of an inch in thickness; that the 
coquettish tree plays the amorous prank of almost 
always having buds, flowers, and pods in sight, so 
that ripe fruit may be gathered at any time, but the 
regular harvests are in June and December, each tree 
yielding about twenty pounds of beans annually; 
and that the nubile age of the tree is five years and 
its prolific period is forty years when comes the meno- 
pause. Such is the nature of the plant which has 
received from the illustrious Linnaeus the name of 
Theobroma Cacao.* 

The manufacturers assert with confidence that the 
best cacao is produced in Venezuela, principally near 
Puerto Cabello and La Guayra, and the merchants 
say that the preparation of cacao beans for the mar- 
ket is not the least part performed by the planters, 
for, unless made with proper care, the whole crop 

* "We misname the berries cocoa because the jicaras or native 
cups, in which the cacao was drunk by the Mexicans, were made 
of the small end of the cocoa-nut." — "Sayings of Dr. Bush- 
whacker." 



174 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

may be lost. The process is briefly as follows: The 
harvesters heap up the pods on the ground and leave 
them to wilt, and on the next day cut them open, 
set free the beans and carry them away in baskets 
so constructed as to allow the juice of some of the 
still adherent acid pulp to drain off; after thorough 
draining the beans are placed in "sweating boxes" or 
buried and covered with clay for fermentation during 
forty-eight hours, this being called the claying of the 
beans, which are then taken out and dried in the sun, 
when they assume a warm reddish hue, which is 
characteristic of superior qualities, ready to be packed 
for exportation. The Theobroma Cacao is now cul- 
tivated in India, Ceylon, Southern China, the Philip- 
pines, and other tropical regions. 

It happened long, long ago that an epicurean com- 
manding officer of a distant military post had some 
doubts about the genuineness of the Gods' food 
served at his regular morning meal and, desiring 
information on the chemistry of cacao, sought en- 
lightenment from the post surgeon, who asked for 
time to confer with the commissary of subsistence, 
who suggested that he write for scientific advice to 
the Medical Director of the Department, who re- 
ferred the communication to the Medical Pur- 
veyor, who sent it to a chocolate merchant who 
appealed to a manufacturer, who consulted his 
apothecary, who entered into a lengthy correspon- 
dence with the most eminent chemists of the terres- 



CHOCOLATE AND OTHER BROTHS 175 

trial globe, who, after twelve months' delay in elab- 
orate investigation, obtained results of the most 
diverse character because some of them had analyzed 
beans which they had extracted from the fresh pods 
before the wilting process, others had selected the 
fermented but not dried beans, and the majority 
had taken their specimens from cured and roasted 
beans. While in this multitude of experimenters, 
only one was found to have used the cacao beans as 
cured for exportation. In his perplexity, the in- 
dustrious, enterprising and inquiring surgeon closed 
his final report with the query — Who shall decide 
when such high and mighty authorities disagree? 
As he had annexed to the report scores of analytical 
tables, among which was one from the French chemist 
Payen to whom the Bon Dieu had given the brilliant 
idea of subjecting to analysis only the cured and un- 
toasted beans, the Commander, casting a glance at 
this last table, said he thought it always safe to decide 
in favor of those whom the Gods love, and so decided 
that the Gallic favorite of Turey had overcome in 
astuteness all his wayward competitors; but alas the 
information had come too late for the warrior's com- 
fort, as he had already given up bad chocolate for 
good coffee to which he sometimes added the Com- 
missariat's spiritus frumenti in sufficient quantity, 
for lack of fine champagne eau-de-vie. The surgeon 
also accepted the Frenchman's analysis of Theobroma 
Cacao beans unroasted, which is as follows: 



176 



DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 



Fat (cacao butter) 






. 52.00 


Nitrogenous compounds 






. 20.00 


Starch . 






.10.00 


Cellulose 






. 2.00 


Theobromin . 






. 2.00 


Saline substances . 






. 4.00 


Water . 






. 10.00 


Cacao red 






(traces) 


Essential oil 









100.00 

The learned chemists, however, agreed that the 
large percentage of fat in cacao greatly increased 
its nutritious properties, and were also of the same 
mind as to the component elements of the highly 
nitrogenised principle theobromin, whose formula is 
C 7 H g N 4 2 , and whose chemical name is dimethyl- 
xanthin, differing from caffein by having one atom 
less of carbon and two less of hydrogen; caffein being 
trimethylxanthin. 

CACAO BROTH. 

The drink commonly called chocolate is in reality 
a cacao broth. The word chocolate is said to be de- 
rived from Aztec chocolatl, from choco, signifying noise, 
and lail, water, because of the noise made by water 
while boiling (Larousse). If this etymology be cor- 
rect, the term chocolate can be properly applied only 
to boiling water singing in a kettle, whereas chocolate 
is now the arbitrary name for cacao paste as well as 
for the broth made of that paste. The following 
from Murray's dictionary gives some verisimilitude 
to the etymology quoted in Larousse's great work. 
The Mexican chocolatl was, says Murray, "an article 



CHOCOLATE AND OTIIES BROTHS 177 

of food made of equal parts of the seeds of cacao 
and of those of the tree called pochotl (Bombax ceiba)* 
. . . chocolatl has no connection whatever with 
the Mexican word cacauatl, cacao, but is, so far as 
known, a radical word of the language. It is possible, 
however, that Europeans confounded chocolatl with 
cacaua-atl which was really a drink made from cacao, 
caca-uaUT 

The Aztecs, and those who early learned from them 
the use of the broth, grated the roasted cacao beans 
and boiled them for immediate consumption. It was 
not until the opening of the seventeenth century that 
the Spaniards began to crush the beans mixed with 
sugar so as to make thereof a paste flavored with 
cinnamon, and dried, for the preparation of the broth 
which they called chocolata. 

The Spanish ladies in Mexico became so fond of 
sweetened cacao broth that they took their morning 
cup in church even during lent. At first they were 
censured for this self-indulgence by the high clergy 
but at length the pecadillo was overlooked, par- 
ticularly since Father Escobar had declared that 
chocolate water did not break a fast; quoting the 
old maxim, liquidum non Jrangit jejunium, which 
Father Tom's chronicler afterward did into polite 
Keltic — "There's no fast on the dhrink." Karmata 

* "The bombax ceiba, a large tree often dug out for canoes 
by the people of Yucatan, is native of the tropical regions of 
Mexico and South America, growing also in the West Indies 
and introduced in the East Indies. The fleshy petals of the 
flowers are sometimes used for food . . . its beautiful soft 
floss is used for pillows and thin mattresses." — Balfour. 



178 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

of Cufa, Arabia, a heterodox Moslem, introduced a 
new kind of fast during which he allowed the faith- 
ful to drink wine. Silence, however, was imposed as 
a part of the fast! 

Chocolate was introduced to the French by Anne 
of Austria, the spouse of Louis XIII, and soon became 
a fashionable beverage which, nearly a century later, 
was taken mixed with coffee and milk under the name 
of choca, the favorite drink of the Parisian wits and 
men of letters who were wont to frequent the famous 
Cafe Procope. 

The French are very fond of flavoring their choco- 
late not only with vanilla as did the Mexicans, but 
with the seeds of the South American musk okra, 
Hibiscus Abelmoschus (Linn.), commonly known 
among them as grains d'ambrette and among us as 
musk seeds which, according to Redwood, have been 
used to flavor coffee. The chocolat ambre of Brillat- 
Savarin was probably flavored with these grains finely 
powdered and mixed with sugar ; about half a drachm 
of this mixture to the pint of boiling chocolate. 

The epicures' formula for brewing the most pala- 
table breakfast cacao broth is to rub up in a little 
milk a quarter of an ounce of impalpably pulverised 
roasted cacao beans, deprived of a considerable pro- 
portion of their fat; to acid to this enough milk to 
make a pint, to boil the mixture for five minutes; 
to sweeten it to taste ; and to stir in two tablespoon- 
fuls of whipped cream. The result is a thin broth of 
which half a pint may be taken. The ordinary thick 



CHOCOLATE AXD OTHER BKOTHS 179 

broth containing not less than two ounces of cacao 
paste to the pint is much too heavy for a delicate 
stomach, besides it is too often adulterated with 
starch and other undesirable substances, and con- 
tains scarcely more than half of its weight of cacao. 

Savarin tells, in his admirable style, of a suggestion 
made to him by the Lady Superior of a convent, 
concerning the preparation of a cacao-broth which 
was, that it should be made on the evening of the day 
before it is to be used. The night's rest, she said, 
concentrates the broth and gives it a velvety smooth- 
ness which greatly improves its taste. It is of 
course to be heated for the morning meal. 

Broths are also made of cacao-nibs, which are the 
roughly crushed beans; of flake-cacao, which is ob- 
tained by crushing the beans between rollers, and of 
cacao-shells, which are the envelopes of the beans, 
corresponding to the parchment-like cover of coffee 
beans. Thin cacao-broth is sometimes taken iced, 
under the name of bavaroise de chocolat. 

Sweetened cacao-paste variously flavored is used 
to coat confections composed of divers substances 
according to the fancies of confectioners. This paste 
also enters into the composition of the so-called 
Neapolitan ice-cream. 

Among the other broths may be mentioned, barley, 
oatmeal, clam, chicken, mutton, beef, besides many 
more, and the well-known caudle which is admirably 
made for her friends by a dear old-time Chestnut ville 
lady. 



180 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

There is another noteworthy broth, so potent as 
to raise the dead, and its formula is given in 
Macbeth, 4, 1. 

Only brief mention will be made of the fermented 
broth, a drink of which was offered to certain travel- 
lers who declined the honor because they had wit- 
nessed its concoction which is here given : 

"In Schouten's and Le Maire's voyage round the 
world in 1616, a familiar liquor was prepared for them 
by the natives of Horn Island. At a banquet, at 
which two of the native princes were present, a com- 
pany of men came in with a quantity of cana, an herb 
of which they make their drink, and each of them 
having taken a mouthful, they for some time chewed 
it together, and then put it into a wooden trough, 
poured water upon it, and having stirred and strained 
it, presented this liquor in cups to their kings, and 
very civilly offered some of it to the Dutch, who de- 
clined tasting of it." (Lettsom's oration on the his- 
tory of the origin of medicine, 1778.) A similar ac- 
count of this "soup" is given by Demeunier in his 
work" which bears the title of " L' esprit des usages 
et des coutumes des Diff evens Peuples," published in 
1776. 



XIII 

THE SEASONING OF ALIMENTS 
"The spice and salt that season a man." 

An oft -quoted deipnophilist said that aboriginal 
man, like the dumb animal, satisfied hunger by de- 
vouring his food in the crude state wherever he found 
it, and that in time he learned the use of not only 
the kinds of aliments best adapted to his wants, but 
of those products of nature which are pleasant to the 
taste, such as nuts and sweet fruits. Furthermore, 
that the earliest food-stuffs were unquestionably 
mushrooms and truffles. 

Compelled to labor arduously in gathering, chewing, 
and swallowing the materials necessary for the suste- 
nance of life, man would soon have perished had not 
the Creator, in His infinite wisdom, and as a recom- 
pense for this labor, endowed him with efficient pre- 
hensile, suctorial, salivary, masticatory, ingestive, 
and digestive organs as well as with delicate, sensory 
apparatuses; all concurring to make alimentation 
pleasurable, for, are not the tactile, auditory, visual, 
olfactory, and gustatory senses exquisitely gratified 
during the acts of eating and drinking savory food? 
Savarin's sixth or genetic sense scarcely finds a place 

181 



182 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

here since it requires two for its gratification, while 
Bell's seventh or muscular sense is only a variety of 
the tactile, closely allied to the genetic. But there 
is an eighth sense which, unlike those already men- 
tioned, requires the concurrence of many for its ex- 
pression. It is orthodoxly stated by the lamented 
Father Tom, as follows: . . . "We're to under- 
stand that the exprission, 'every sinsible man,' sig- 
nifies simply, 'every man that judges by his nath'ral 
sinses ' ; and we all know that nobody f olleying them 
seven deludhers could ever find out the mystery 
that's in it, if somebody didn't come to his assistance 
wid an eighth sinse, which is the only sinse to be 
depended on, being the sinse of the church." . . . 
He says elsewhere: "Them operations of the sinses 
. . . comprises only particular corporayal emo- 
tions, and isn't to be depended upon at all. If we 
were to follow them blind guides, we might jist as 
well turn heretics at ons't." 

Of the many scores of subordinate senses cata- 
logued in literary and scientific productions, those 
which more particularly concern us at this time and 
place and which are truly senseful are: the sense of 
pleasure, which is the sensus communis of deipno- 
philists; the sense of duty, which warns us to be 
regular participants in and punctual attendants at 
gastronomic and intellectual feasts, and which bids 
us to bear in mind Savarin's seventeenth aphorism, 
that to await too long the coming of a tardy guest is 
a want of regard for all those who are present; the 



SEASONING OF ALIMENTS 183 

sense of the good and true, which the righteous pos- 
sess in the highest degree; the sense of beauty by 
which we mentally enjoy graceful forms, contrast 
of light and shade, rich color, and delicate tints; 
Doctor Syntax' sense of the picturesque, which is 
always enjoyable; the senses of melody, harmony, 
and poetry, with which cultured men are so fully 
endowed; the sense of humor, which it would be 
fruitless to attempt to define ; besides deaf Staple- 
ton's sense of smoking, which we so greatly enjoy; 
the Pickwickian sense, which is so Pickwickianly 
benign; and lastly the castanian sense, which in- 
cludes them all. 

When man became gregarious and able to ex- 
change thoughts with his fellows, observation and 
experience led him to discover and suggest means to 
render palatable some highly nutritious aliments 
which, in their natural state, are tasteless or other- 
wise unfit for use. This he accomplished by coction 
and by the addition of condiments, such as salt and 
fat. Originally ingesting only vegetables, containing, 
as some of them do, but a minimum of sodium 
chlorid, his entrails must have sorely felt the want 
of a sufficiency of this salt which was unknown to 
him, but which is so essential to easy digestion; it 
is therefore not unlikely that, for a long time, he 
suffered the pangs of dyspepsia erroneously regarded 
as a consequence solely of civilised life and of mod- 
ern self indulgence. . . . 



184 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

OF COCTION. 

When ruralising or camping in the wilderness, 
how cheering, comforting, encouraging it is to bear 
in mind Savarin's fifteenth aphorism to the effect 
that man may become a cook but is a born roaster! 
It is clear that when the ascendant from Pithecan- 
thropus Erectus first resorted to coction, roasting 
came to him by nature. The fire he built at night to 
fright away wild beasts and to warm himself served 
to bake, in the ashes, the roots and other provisions 
gathered during the day. It was long before he began 
to eat the flesh of the animals which he had killed in 
self-defense, and the meat, roasted before the fire, 
was probably very gustful to him and easily digested 
on account of the amount of sodic and potassic 
chlorids therein contained. He then soon learned 
the trick of smearing his cooked vegetables with 
drippings of fat from the sizzling haunches just as the 
small boy of to-day is wont to soak his slice of bread 
in hot, rich gravy. This may be regarded as the 
dawn of luxury. . . . 

OF DECOCTION. 

Encouraged by his success with coction, the great- 
grandson of the prehistoric Neanderthalisher tried 
decoction but, at first, was doomed to disappoint- 
ment because of rapid combustion of the thin walls 
of the calabash used as a boiler. After repeated ex- 
periments, tending to prevent carbonisation of the 
utensil, and as many signal failures, it probably oc- 



SEASONING OF ALIMENTS 185 

curred to him to coat a newly prepared calabash with 
soft clay, to dry it in the sun, to fill all cracks with 
the same plastic material, and thus to construct the 
first marmite in which he obtained the first simmer, 
the first decoction, the first boiled vegetables, which 
were the precursors of the wily Jacob's pottage with 
which he " buncoed" his greedy brother, of heathen- 
ish Chinese millet porridge, of Tibetan bean curds, 
of Etrurian chestnut puree, of Gallic soupe aux 
choux, of African onion broth, of Hibernian stew, of 
Iberian ollapodrida* of Hispaniolian fricasseed utias, 
of Cuban ajiaco, of Venezuelan sancocho, of Peru- 
vian cary-hucho, of Hungarian goulash, of Scottish 
potato soup, of Louisiana gombo-fde, of Jersey okra 
soup, of Kentucky burgoo, of Vermont pandowdy, of 
aldermanic calapash, of Provengale bouillabaisse, and 
of Squantum clam chowder. Kindly permit a brief 
digression on a question of pottery priority. 

Although earthen ware vases, so necessary to 
good cooks, are supposed to have been invented three 
thousand five hundred and ninety-nine years ago by 
Epimetheus, who is said to have made the vessel in 
which his brother Prometheus had corked up the 
pathogenic microbia which were liberated by Dame 

* The Spanish and their descedants in the Antilles and in 
South America still have their special stews with variations in 
composition and name. For instance, the olla of meridional 
Spain is known as puchero in the north, as ajiaco in Cuba, as 
sancocho in Venezuela, and as cary-hucho in Peru. Podrida is 
not added to olla in any part of Spain. It must have been 
jocularly suggested by some person who had tasted (una olla 
muy podrida) a very rotten stew. 



186 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Epimetheus, commonly known as Pandora; it is 
proved beyond cavil that the first potter was the 
youthful emigrant from the frigid Neander vale to a 
more genial clime, that he might save the expense of 
superfluous raiment, who did make the first marmite 
in the warm country of palms, gourds, and plenty, 
who afterward extemporised sundry forms of vessels 
and bottles to contain fancy drinks, and who therefore 
did anticipate master Epimetheus by many thousand 
years.* 

The use of soups and stews is unquestionably of the 
greatest antiquity. Pictet asserts that the Aryans 
were great consumers of soup, which term is said to 
be derived from the Sanskrit supa, meaning pottage, 
broth, sauce; supakara being used for cook and liter- 
ally signifying maker of soup. The earliest decoc- 
tions must have been in some way flavored to suit 
the primitive palates. But it is difficult for us to 
imagine a tast)^ soup without sweet or salty flavoring, 
and it is fair to assume that a great period of time 
must have elapsed before sweet and salty soups came 
into use; that the sweet was employed before the 
salty condiment ; that probably the succulent pulp of 
certain gourds was boiled with some sweeter fruit 
to make a tasty, nourishing soup; and that as soon 
as salt was discovered, it was added to millet, bean, 
and other porridges which before could not be taken 
with relish. 

* According to Professor Petrie earthen ware vessels were 
made in Egypt eight thousand years ago. 



SEASONING OF ALIMENTS 187 

From what precedes it is clear that the fondness of 
civilised man for broths, stews, soups, purees, fri- 
candos, and ragoHts, is an inheritance from very early 
ancestors. In nearly every country or region of 
country there is a peculiar broth or stew which trav- 
ellers generally find agreeable to the taste as well as 
wholesome and nourishing. The French probably 
exceed the other modern peoples in the great variety 
and excellence of their pottages. Only two of their 
works need be cited to give an idea of the resources 
of the Gallic cook — The Cuisinier Imperial, edited by 
Bernardi (1870), contains one hundred and forty 
recipes for soups and purees. Careme's celebrated 
pupil Francatelli, once Maitre-d' hotel of Queen Vic- 
toria, published "The Modern Cook," which includes 
directions for making one hundred and eighty-four 
pottages. In England Mrs. Beeton incorporated many 
French soup recipes among the one hundred and 
twelve which she recorded. The stews are almost 
as great numerically. In Chestnutville there are 
French cooks who boast of being able to serve a 
different soup for every day in the year. The old 
proverb: 

"Bon potage et bien mitonnt, 
Est plus que moitie disne'.'" 

is one of the many evidences of the French estimation 
of soup; but the other and more modern adage — La 
sowpe fait le soldat — does not appear to have been 
current among the Germans during the Franco- 
Prussian war, for then the sausage made the Teutonic 



188 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

soldier; and in our own wars the early morning pint 
of hot coffee infusion gave the greatest vigor to the 
soldier for the march and fight. . . , 

OF CONDIMENTS. 

Condiments — those substances added to aliments 
to render them relishable, appetising, digestible, and 
nourishing — may be classed as salty, fatty, sour, 
pungent, aromatic, and sweet; used singly or com- 
bined to season sauces. The sweet, salty and fatty 
condiments — the earliest discovered — were, in time, 
followed by the sour, pungent, aromatic, and the many 
varieties since found have become indispensable in 
modern cookery. The salty condiments include the 
chlorids of sodium, potassium and magnesium, and 
the oxalate and nitrate of potassium; the fatty con- 
sist of fixed oils, lard, suet, milk, cream, butter and 
cheese; the sour comprise lemon and lime juice, vine- 
gar and other acid products; among the pungent are 
black and long pepper, capsicum, horse-radish, mus- 
tard and curry-powders; the aromatic being in 
greatest numbers, as ginger, turmeric, galangal, para- 
dise grains, cardamun, parsley, chives, leeks, onions, 
shallots, garlic, mushrooms, truffles, celery seeds, 
angelica, anis, coriander, cumin, caraway, ajowan, dill 
seeds, sweet fennel, tarragon, nutmeg, mace, cinna- 
mon, cassia, sassafras, bay leaves, canella alba, cloves, 
allspice, pickled olives and capers, saffron, sage, 
thyme, mint, nasturtium, gaultheria, vanilla, essen- 
tial oils, cider, perry, wine, brandy, rum, and arrack; 



SEASONING OF ALIMENTS 189 

while the sweet take in the juices of sweet fruits as 
well as honey and sugar. 

Antiphanes gives the following catalogue of season- 
ings used in his time : 

" Dried grapes, and salt, and eke new wine 
Newly boiled down, and assafoetida,* 
And cheese, and thyme, and sesame, 
And nitre, too, and cumin seed, 
And sumach, honey, and marjoram, 
And herbs, and vinegar and oil 
And sauce of onions, mustard and capers mix'd, 
And parsley, capers too, and eggs, 
And lime, and cardamums, and th' acid juice 
Which comes from the green fig tree, besides lard 
And eggs and honey and flour wrapp'd in fig-leaves, 
And all compounded in one savory forcemeat." 
Athen^eus, Epit. B. II, 77. 

For many centuries past the names and properties 
of many condiments have led to their being borrowed 
by the literati for metaphoric use. Thus, in speaking 
of style, the word piquant is often used with good 
effect, and salt in praise of eloquence or of clever 
productions. Many other metaphoric forms are in 
constant use; as the salting of freshmen, the salting 
of accounts, the salting of mines, etc. An ancient 
mariner is often styled an old salt, etc., etc. A work 

* "The name assafcetida was given to this substance by the 
Salernum school, and seems to be derived from the Persian 
assa, meaning gum. It is called stercus diaboli by facetious stu- 
dents, and teufelstuhl by the common people in Germany, 
while in some parts of the Orient a term signifying God's meat 
is used for its designation. It is uncertain whether the silphion 
of Greek and the laser of Latin authors really designate this 
substance." 



190 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

may be tasteful, tasteless, insipid, or unsavory — may 
lack salt. A low comedy is called a farce* A sweet 
face, a honey tongue, a sour disposition, a peppery 
mood, bitter words, and a host of other metaphors 
are traced to the properties of those condiments used 
to gratify the gustatory sense. Good examples are 
contained in the following lines of Moliere's Femmes 
Savantes, Act III, Scene 2. 

"Servez-nous promptement votre aimable repas. 

Pour cette grande faim qu' a mes yeux on expose, 

Un plat seul de huit vers me semble peu de chose; 

Et je pense qu' ici je ne ferai pas mal 

De joindre a l'epigramme, on bien au madrigal, 

Le ragout d'un sonnet qui, chez une Princesse, 

A passe pour avoir quelque delicatesse. 

II est de sel Attique assaisonne par tout, 

Et vous le trouverez, je crois, d'assez bon gout." 

Shakspeare's works abound in these metaphors 
derived from edibles and from the special senses. 

OF SAUCES. 

Sauces,t those comparatively modern culinary con- 
trivances, evolved from the gravy first observed to 
drip from roasting flesh, soon became so essential to 
good cookery as to excite great emulation among the 

* The plural word farces is used metaphorically by the French 
to signify pleasantries, and farceur, qui fait des farces, qui nous 
farce, i. e., who is stuffing, guying or fooling us. 

| The middle English and old French designation was salse, 
from the Latin salsa, from sal, salt. 



SEASONING OF ALIMENTS 191 

cooks, and it was not long before some noted chefs 
earned their high reputation through the excellence 
of their sauces, so that they were eventually known 
as eminent saucier s. Although the name of these 
composite condiments implies the presence of salt, 
there are sweet sauces made of fruits and sugar, as 
the apple sauce, so relishable with tame duck or with 
domestic goose, the apple butter, the sweet jellies 
served with roasted venison, and the pudding sauces. 
Sweet pickles, too, form excellent adjuvants to cold 
meats. The compounding of sauces is regarded as 
one of the great arts of alimentary science for which 
much honor is due to the French who invented the 
five grand sauces that form the basis of nearly two 
hundred lesser sauces.* 

During the nineteenth century the innocent in 
hygienic gastronomy have been duped into purchas- 
ing at a high price, and led to the excessive use of 
certain gorge-rising bottled abominations bearing the 
usurped title of sauces, ironicly styled table disin- 
fectants, though they are truly infectant. These 
rank compounds of villainously foul odor and van- 
dalisticly bad taste deserve greater condemnation 
than the dispraisal of epicureans, for, when habitually 
ingested, they not only blunt and deprave the gusta- 
tory sense, but impede digestion and cause serious 
mischief. 

The sauce made of blood and spices invented by 

* According to Grimod, there were known to French cooks, 
in 1S07, only a little over eighty kinds of sauces. 



192 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

a Lydian cook and called caruca seems to have been a 
precursor of these vile modern bottled sauces. 

The following are fair specimens of the saucier 7 s 
art in the olden time, taken from the Horatian Satires, 
Book II, Satires IV and VIII. 

"Two sorts of sauce are worthy to be known; 
Simple the first, and of sweet oil alone: 
The other mix'd with rich and generous wine, 
And the true pickle of Bizanthian brine; 
Let it with shredded herbs and saffron boil, 
And when it cools pour in Venafran oil. 

SAUCE FOR'" A LAMPREY. 

"The sauce is mix'd with olive oil; the best 
And purest from the vats Venafran press'd, 
And, as it boil'd, we pour'd in Spanish brine, 
Nor less than five-year-old Italian wine. 
A little Chian's better when 'tis boil'd, 
By any other it is often spoil'd. 
Then was white pepper o'er it gently pour'd, 
And vinegar of Lesbian vintage sour'd." * 

In connection with sauces, the following tale so 
well told by Savarin, may not be out of place. 

The Prince de Soubise, intending to give an enter- 
tainment, which was to end with a supper, asked his 
maitre-d' hotel for the menu which was duly brought 
to him. The first item on the list was "fifty hams." 
"What, Bertrancl," said the Prince, "thou dreamest; 
fifty hams ! Dost thou wish to regale my whole regi- 
ment? " " No, my Prince; only one ham will appear 

* Translation of Philip Francis, D. D. 



SEASONING OF ALIMENTS 193 

on the table, but the surplus will not be less necessary 
for my brown s^auce, my blonds, my garnitures, 
my . . ." " Bertrand you are robbing me, and 
this article will not pass." — "Ah! my Lord," said 
the artist scarcely able to repress his anger, "you 
know not our resources! Command, and these fifty 
obfuscating hams will be so reduced as to be con- 
tained in a crystal vial no larger than the thumb." 
The Prince smiled and the article passed. 

Another story, taken from Berchoux's poem "La 
Gastronomie" together with the note thereon may 
be worth recording here as it refers to a sauce. 

"Domitien un jour se presents au senat: 
Peres consents, dit-il, une affaire d'etat 
M'appelle aupres de vous. Je ne viens point vous dire 
Qu'il s'agit de veiller au salut de Fempire; 
Exciter votre zele, et prendre vos avis 
Sur les destins de Rome et des peuples conquis; 
Agiter avec vous ou la paix ou la guerre: 
Vains projets sur lesquels vous n'avez qu' a vous taire; 
II s'agit d'un turbot: daignez deliberer 
Sur la sauce qu'on doit lui faire preparer . . . 
Le senat mit aux voix cette affaire importante, 
Et le turbot fut mis a la sauce piquante." 

The piquant sauce is here a poetical fiction of Ber- 
choux; the original story being as follows: Domitian 
one day convoked the senate to know in what vase 
could be cooked an enormous turbot that had been 
sent him. The senators gravely discussed the ques- 
tion, and as there could not be found a vessel of suf- 
ficient size, it was proposed to cut up the fish, but 
this suggestion was rejected. After prolonged delib- 



194 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

eration it was solemnly decided that a vase be con- 
structed for the purpose. t 

Savarin, more ingenious than the gluttonish 
Romans, describes in characteristicly felicitous style, 
his management of a monster turbot, too large for 
the ordinary domestic fish boiler and too fine a speci- 
men to be allowed to spoil, for it was not to be cut 
up. He succeeded in cooking it by steam in half an 
hour with the aid of a quickly improvised apparatus, 
and in serving it whole and well seasoned much to 
the entertainment and delight of the company which 
was to enjoy the delicate dish. . . . 

While modern gourmets enjoy to the fullest extent 
of their senses the delicacy of skilfully prepared sauces, 
those who eat mechanicly and only to appease the 
cravings of hunger are content with anything of a 
fatty nature. It is related of an illustrious soldier, 
remarkable for his sobriety, and for always being so 
preoccupied with his plans of battle as to sometimes 
forget to eat, that once at the evening meal he sea- 
soned his meat with a malodorous, nauseous, medicinal 
unguent, which was at hand and which he had mis- 
taken for the intended sauce and that he ate this 
without seeming to be aware of his mistake. 

Nothing could form a more marked contrast to the 
careless habits of eating and lack of appreciation of 
good things just stated than the talk of a noted 
modern French gourmet who said that he greatly 
prized his cook, not because of the scrupulous care 
she took in the preparation of roasts and entremets, 



SEASONING OF ALIMENTS 195 

but because she was incomparable for supremes of 
fowls, and crayfish butter, unique in her talent for 
Italian sauces, and marvelous for salmis. One of his 
gastronomic adages was to the effect that in order 
to enjoy a truffled turkey, only two were required: 
the turkey and himself. 

Any man unwilling to pay well for a good sauce is 
likely to be regarded as the meanest and most des- 
picable of creatures by the artistic chef. This is 
well illustrated in the "Art of Dining," second edi- 
tion, 1853, as follows: 

" Colonel Damer, happening to enter Crockford's 
one evening to dine early, found Ude walking up and 
down in a towering passion, and naturally inquired 
what was the matter. 'The matter, Monsieur le 
Colonel! Did you see that man who has just gone 
out? Well, he ordered a red mullet for his dinner. 
I made him a delicious little sauce with my own hands. 
The price of the mullet marked on the carte was 2s.; 
I added 6d. for the sauce. He refuses to pay the 6d. 
That imbecille apparently believes that the red mullets 
come out of the sea with my sauce in their pockets!" 

The subject of sauces should not be dismissed 
without allusion to the sauce Robert rendered famous 
by the epitaph on a grave-stone in the cemetery of 
Pere la Chaise. 

"Ci git qui des l'age le plus tendre 
Inventa la sauce Robert; 
Mais jamais il ne put apprendre 
Ni son credo ni son pater." 



XIV 

OF SALTY AND FATTY CONDIMENTS 
"Ye are the salt of the earth." 

Ye, whose sa'pience comprises the material universe 
and whose verbal exchequer is inexhaustible, are 
surely aware of the vast importance of freely ingest- 
ing the most substantial mental and physical pabula, 
such as will not fail to invigorate soul and body, 
memory and imagination, speech and gesture, and 
thus enable you to examine criticly and discuss 
calmly the grave, intricate, and momentous question 
of the nature of those condiments that not only 
facilitate digestion but flatter the palate, accelerate 
the circulation, gladden the spirits, stimulate the 
thinking apparatus and speed the solution of all 
imaginable riddles. 

Let us first give a little attention to some of those 
condiments employed in early times, that are still in 
use, such as common salt, oil, lard, suet, milk, cream, 
butter and cheese. Although the fatty were the 
earliest discovered, the salty, for no reason whatso- 
ever, will be examined first. The name salt was 
formerly given to many substances of very different 
nature, but modern chemists apply the generic term 
salt to the combination of an acid with one or more 
bases, and recognise neutral, alkaline and acid salts. 

196 



SALTY AND FATTY CONDIMENTS 197 

Some salts are alike alimentary and intellectual con- 
diments. They are not all characterized by piquan- 
cy, pungency, bitterness, or the flavor known as salty, 
for many of them lack those qualities. Among these 
salines are the solid, liquid, gaseous, and metaphoric. 
Certain solid salts are found in the bowels of the earth, 
hence their laxative properties; those in the liquid 
state are in salt springs, lakes, and seas, in many 
vegetable organisms, in the blood of animated crea- 
tures, and in the minds of the learned; the gaseous, 
which are generally insipid, emanate from "intra- 
cranial tympanites," a condition discovered and 
named by a learned Exegetist who had observed it 
principally in speakers affected with a prodigious 
flow of inflated verbiage and a chronic destitution of 
ideas. The metaphoric salt seasons, with temperance, 
good taste, and judgment, the works of eminent 
writers and sound thinkers and is always agreeable, 
entertaining, and instructive to attentive readers. 
An exquisitely flavored metaphoric salt, the Attic, 
discovered in the speech and writings of the pandits 
and wits of ancient Athens, is often borrowed by the 
moderns who highly prize it as the symbol of sapience. 
We must not forget that proverbial grain of salt so 
appropriately used by the elder Pliny,* and now so 

* "Addito salis grano" — there being a grain of salt added. 
Pliny, Book XXIII, Chapter VIII (77) in the formula for an 
antidote for poisons. "Cum grano salis — with great limitation. 
As salt is sparingly used for a condiment, so truth is sparingly 
scattered in an exaggerated report." "With a grain of salt — 
with something to help swallowing it. With some latitude or 
allowance. Said of anything to which we are unable to give 
implicit credence." 



198 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

often wrongly pluralised into many grains, without 
improving in the least degree the original "cum grano 
salis." It would scarcely do to omit mention of the 
divine William's saline metaphor in the dialogue 
between Sir John and the Chief Justice in II Henry 
IV, 1, 2. — "Your Lordship, though not clean past 
your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some 
relish of the saltness of time." And another in the 
"Merry Wives," II, 3 — "We have some salt of our 
youth with us." 

Many culinary terms with the prefix sal are among 
those in which this condiment prevails to give certain 
aliments the right savor, such as salmi, salad, salse 
the middle English word for sauce, saligot which is a 
stew of tripe and is also the vulgar name of the water- 
chestnut, and many other terms of the kitchen. The 
dish of chopped meat with onions, eggs, etc., commonly 
styled salmagundi, but by the Italians salmigundi, 
is so called owing to its markedly salty flavor, from 
the Latin sal and the past participle conditus of con- 
dire, to pickle. The French took from the Italians 
the word salmi, which they gave to a ragout of game 
birds, far different and much more savory than the 
primitive salmigundi* 

The principal use of salt in certain regions of the 
country is to preserve pigs for exportation before 
their post-mortem conversion into adipocere, or their 
consumption by microbia. 

* A noted parasite and miser once said to his friends with 
whom he was to dine: "Do you furnish the meats and wine, 
I shall contribute the salt." 



SALTY AND FATTY CONDIMENTS 199 

The illustrious dean of St. Patrick long since sug- 
gested a new use for sodium chlorid which was to con- 
vert Irish infants into salt provisions for the navy, 
and thus prevent poor children from being a burden 
to their parents. 

Pliny tells of the salting of cadavers to prevent de- 
composition until the moment of cremation, just as 
we now use ice to preserve bodies until the time of 
their inhumation. 

Shakspeare mentions the use of salt as an addition 
to the tortures inflicted in his time. On the sud- 
den and shocking announcement of the marriage of 
Octavia and Antony, Cleopatra strikes down the 
unwelcome messenger, calls him bad names, wools 
him, and says: 

"Thou shalt be whipped with wire, and stewed in brine, 
Smarting in ling'ring pickle." 

— Antony and Cleopatra, 2, 5. 

SALTY CONDIMENTS. 

The salty condiments now in use are few, and among 
them only the following need be mentioned, viz.: 
sodium, magnesium and potassium chlorids and 
potassium oxalate and nitrate. The ancient adage 
sal sapit omnia has particular reference to sodium 
chlorid. The finding of this salt is one of the many 
evidences of man's indebtedness, to those creatures 
he is pleased to style the lower animals, for the enjoy- 
ment of many luxuries and necessities. To the birds * 

* Were it not for the blessed insectivorous birds, all vegetable 
food and textile stuffs would be devoured in the bud by bugs, 



200 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

is he not beholden for his knowledge of the nutritive 
properties of the cereals, to the rodentia for the nuts 
and birds' eggs, to the apes for the milk in the cocoa- 
nut and for many luscious fruits, to the swine for 
the roots and the truffle, to some of the herbivora for 
the salty grasses containing potassium oxalate and 
nitrate, to the carnivora for flesh, meat, etc.? It is 
therefore more than likely that the discovery of salt 
was made by a ruminant animal which a wild man 
saw in the act of licking a glistening deposit on the 
clay surface or the rock at or near the mouth of 
a spring. Imitative, like his kinsman the simian, 
that man soon began experiments with the aid of 
his lingual appendage and found so much pleasure 
in the process, and was so greedy for a quicker and 
greater supply, that he contrived a way to scrape off 
and gather some of the stuff with which he afterward 
seasoned his coarse and hitherto tasteless porridge. 
These crystalline formations, vulgarly called salt- 
licks, have long been visited by the bison, common 
deer, and other ruminants, so many of which have 
perished in the adjacent deep mire, that one of the 
springs in the State of Kentucky bears the name of 
Big-Bone-Lick. 

caterpillars and other creeping things; leaving the food-beasts 
to starve, and rendering man a naked, fish-eating creature soon 
to perish from the consequences of the enforced exclusive diet! 
What would then become of the "vegetarians?" What would 
be their food should the grasses, roots, and nut and fruit trees 
disappear owing to the destruction of birds and the multiplica- 
tion of insects? Where would they find raiment for protection 
from the cold when the cotton plant, the flax, the hemp, etc., 
would all be extinct? 



SALTY AND FATTY CONDIMENTS 201 

Who made the first plausible record of the discovery 
of the properties of salt, it is not easy to ascertain, 
Polidore Virgil writes that "salt, and the use thereof, 
was perceived by Misor Salech," but does not say 
who Misor Salech was and when he lived. Was 
Misor Salech the prophet who lived before the time 
of Abraham? 

Salt, known to man from a very remote time, was 
evidently for a great while the only condiment he 
added to fat. It was afterward also employed for 
other purposes, as when a town was destroyed the 
Hebrew warriors spread salt on the site, believing 
that the soil would thereby be rendered forever 
sterile; the adjective salty in Hebraic language 
being synonymous with barrenness. The Egyptians 
and Romans entertained this belief and acted in 
accordance therewith. . . . The new born were 
rubbed with salt as a purifyer. The purpose of its 
use in infant baptism, in modern times, is too well 
known to require any commentary. . . . Among 
some of the eastern nations, salt at this time is the 
recognised emblem of friendship. To eat salt with 
an Arab was and is regarded as the most sacred tie 
of amity. . . . An Arab thief, on entering a 
house in the dead of night, stumbling upon a lump of 
salt, abstained from committing the intended rob- 
bery and retired. . . . 

Salt was the principal condiment of the Greeks and 
Romans, who used it also in their sacrifices as an 
offering that was always pleasing to the Gods. The 



202 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

salt receiver was invariably placed in the middle of 
the table. Among the Romans, the wedding cake, 
of flour and salt, was prepared by vestals and carried 
in the procession in front of the bride when she was 
led to the bridegroom's house. After supper each 
guest received a portion of this cake.* . . . 

The Roman soldier, who carried, on the march, a 
burden of at least sixty pounds including fifteen days' 
rations, was provided with a sufficiency of salt which 
was added to his pack. The Roman ration consisted 
of wheat, pork, oil, cheese, vegetables, and salt. . . . 
The word salary (solarium) originated from the dis- 
tribution of salt to the army. For a long time the 
officers received a certain quantity of salt which 
they sold for money to pay the troops. ... In 
very early times the Greeks used salt for the preser- 
vation of fish and other meats. Athenseus, in speak- 
ing of the Athenians' fondness for pickled fish, says 
that in recognition of the great service Chaerephilus 
rendered by introducing salt fish to them, they en- 
rolled his sons as citizens of Athens; and further says 
that Alexis, in his Hippiscus and Soraci, makes men- 
tion of Phidippus, who was a dealer in salt provisions 
as "a foreigner who brought salt fish to Athens." 
. . . Homer called salt divine, and speaks of 
some nations who never used salt as a condiment. 
. . . According to Sallust the Numidians disdained 
adding salt or any other flavoring to their aliments. 

* From this was evidently evolved the present sweet wedding 
cake. 



SALTY AND FATTY CONDIMENTS 203 

The Egyptian priests ordinarily used no salt with 
their food. 

FATTY CONDIMENTS. 

Fat was undoubtedly the first condiment derived 
from vegetable and animal matter, but besides being 
a mere seasoning, it is an absolutely necessary food 
for both man and beast. It is contained in greater 
or less proportion in the grasses, grains, nuts, tubers, 
and fruits with which animal life is sustained. Man, 
the most cruel and not the least rapacious of om- 
nivorous beasts, obtains a great part of the fat he 
consumes by slaughtering and devouring dumb 
beasts, while in time of famine he has become anthro- 
pophagous, and it is not very long since that he 
practised cannibalism from choice. In those times 
a man was not declared good unless fat, then he was 
good to be eaten, under the name of long-pig, short- 
pig being the swine. 

Some paleontosophists who have found certain 
fossil bones bi-sected longitudinally, are disposed to 
regard this as designedly done by man to pick out 
the marrow for a bonne-bouche. Precisely how the 
marrow bones were served to the primitive gourmets, 
whether as entrees or entremets, has not yet been as- 
certained. One thing, however, seems highly prob- 
able, and it is that those who split these bones did 
so to enjoy the marrow's fat. 

Fats, in the form of oil, lard,* suet, cream, and 

* The subjoined statement gives some idea of the amount 
of surplus fatty products of the United States and of its dis- 



204 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

butter, to fry certain aliments, to enrich sauces, to 
give consistency to some puddings, and to lighten 
pasties, are now absolutely indispensable to the 
accomplished cook. In countries where olives abound 
their oil is used almost exclusively in cookery — 
cuisine h Vhuile — while in regions of rich pastures 
butter is the principal fat in use — cuisine au beurre — 
and in great cities, where all dainties are obtained, 
lard and suet are added as fatty condiments. The 
consistency and pearly appearance of lard are owing 
to the abundance of margarin and the small quantity 
of stearin, whilst the hardness of suet is due to the 
great amount of stearin in proportion to the mar- 
garin and olein which enter into its composition. 
These two fats hold such an important place in the 
modern kitchen as to have given rise to the saying: 
No ox, no suet; no sheep, no tallow; no pig, no lard; 
no cow, no butter; no fats, no cook; and no cook, 
savagery!* . . .* 

Man is sometimes placed in situations where he 
is obliged to resort to expedients which are justified 
only by dire necessity. For instance, whalers, short 
of fatty provisions, have employed freshly tried whale 

position. In 1898 the exports of these products to foreign coun- 
tries were as follows: 

Lard 709,344,045 lbs. 

Lard Oil 775,102 gals. . 

Cotton-seed Oil ... . 40,230,784 gals. 

Much of the exported cotton-seed oil is said to be returned 
to this country labelled as "prime olive oil." 

* Lard appears to have been introduced into cookery by the 
ancient Persians. 



SALTY AND FATTY CONDIMENTS 205 

oil to fry doughnuts and other dainties; declaring it 
to be sweet, savory, and wholesome. 

A distinguished chemist who was asked what is 
oil? answered, there are essential and fixed oils; 
the fixed oils of vegetable or animal origin are sub- 
stances usually liquid at ordinary temperatures, 
becoming solid on cooling, more or less viscid, insolu- 
ble in water, saponifiable by alkalies, yielding soap 
and glycerin. — At that moment it was suggested to 
him that the statement was rather a description than 
a definition, and that it was remindful of a certain 
youth's attempted definition of love, beginning with 
a declamation that promised to be of tedious length, 
when he was abruptly interrupted with the excla- 
mation that love is love and nothing else ! * So it 
may be said that oil is oil and nothing else. Then 
a would-be syllogistical wight undertook confidently 
the task of definition and said that fat is greasy and 
grease is fatty; argal, all fats are greasy and all 
grease is fatty; fixed oils are unctuous and unguents 
are oily; argal, all fixed oils are unctuous and all 
unguents are oily; fixed oils are fatty liquids and 
fats are oily solids; argal, all fixed oils are fatty liquids 
and all fats are oily solids, f The Shakspearean 
grave-digger could not have done better! . . . 

* Robert Herrick undertakes to tell "what love is:" 
" Love is a circle that doth restless move 
In the same sweet eternity of Love." 
t Oil originally signified olive oil; the word being derived from 
the Latin oleum, related to the Greek elaion, from elaia, olive 
tree. The chemists designate fixed or fatty oils as triglycerides 
of the fatty acids known as oleic, margaric, and stearic acids. 



206 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Oil and other fats are of great value to metaphor- 
ists who employ them to calm troubled waters, and 
to designate well filled purses, lucrative offices, pro- 
lific soils, rich pastures, and many other things fat 
and flourishing. 

Milk, which enters so largely into the diet of man, 
is worthy of more attention than it is likely to receive 
in this short sketch. The milk commonly used in 
this country is from the domestic cow. In other 
countries, however, as in China, the milk of every 
domesticable mammal is employed for obtaining 
cream and butter, and wherever the wild cow roams, 
it is seized for a milker and its lacteous product is 
preferred to that of the domestic animals. Cow's 
milk, say the chemists, consists of four per centum 
of casein and albumen united to a small proportion 
of tribasic calcium phosphate; four per centum of 
milk globules or butter, five per centum of lactose 
or milk sugar, and traces of alkaline salts dissolved in 
the eighty-seven parts of water, the whole being an 
emulsion which on standing separates into cream and 
an opaline serum containing the lactose, casein and 
albumen. Although milk is generally regarded by 
wine bibbers as an aliment fit only for the first and 
last ages of man — that sans teeth, sans hair, sans 
everything period — many heavy topers are wont to 
use it not only as a sobering, thirst quenching luxury, 
but often as a menstruum for strong drink. Milk, 
as a condiment to coffee, and cream to tea, were first 
used in the latter part of the seventeenth century. 



SALTY AND FATTY CONDIMENTS 207 

Cream, as now separated centrifugally from the 
milk, is said to contain from twenty-five to thirty 
per centum of butter. . . . There prevails among 
some of the peasantry of Europe the absurd idea that 
the yield of cream is increased by dropping into the 
milk a small piece of zinc. The following may appro- 
priately be sandwiched between cream and butter: 

Fat Jack — Tut! never fear me; I am as vigilant as a cat to 
steal cream. 

Prince Henry — I think, to steal cream indeed; for thy 
theft hath already made thee butter. — I Henry IV, 4, 2. 

Butter was not known to the early Greeks whose 
poets ignored it while they so often made mention of 
milk and cheese. According to Beekman they after- 
ward learned its use from the Scythians, Thracians, 
and Phrygians. The Romans, who got it from the 
people of Germania, did not use it as an aliment but 
as an unguent for their infants. The Spaniards also, 
for a long time, used butter solely as a salve in the 
treatment of wounds. The word boutyron (butter) 
is from bous tyros, which, in reality, means cheese 
made of cow's milk. What may have been the Scy- 
thian word from which it is said to have been derived 
does not seem to be known, since no writings in Scy- 
thian have been found. The Phrygian word for but- 
ter was pikerion. Athenaeus, in the Deipnosophists, 
Book X, 67, quotes Hecatseus as saying of the Egyp- 
tians that "they anoint themselves with the oil of 
milk." ... In Book IV, 7, Yong's translation, 
is the following: "And a countless number of men, 



208 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

with dirty hands and hair uncombed, supped on 
butter." ... An Athenian woman and a Spar- 
tan woman once meeting face to face, both instantly 
turned their heads in disgust; the first named be- 
cause of the smell of rancid butter * exhaled by the 
second, and she because of the strong odor of the 
perfumes with which the Athenian had impreg- 
nated her garments. De (odoribus) non est dispu- 
tandum. 

In Genesis, 18, 8, may be read: " And he took but- 
ter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and 
set it before them; and he stood by them under the 
tree, and they did eat." . . . During the early 
years of Christianity, butter was often burned in the 
lamps instead of oil,t and this custom is even now 
observed in Abyssinia. Fresh butter known as karra 
in India is seldom used by the natives. The Tartars, 
says Balfour, make from goat's milk a kind of butter 
which they boil and preserve in goat-skins for winter 
use; and although they put in no salt, it never spoils. 
In Tibet butter is obtained in enormous quantities 
from yak's milk and kept as winter food. Some 
Orientals still drink melted butter and also soak 
therein their vegetable food. 

* In the fifth century, and later, the Burgundians and other 
peoples of eastern France, still used rancid butter as a hair 
pomatum, and it is so used by the Abyssinians to this day. 

|The "butter," mentioned by the translators of Genesis, 
was probably ox-fat, asserts an unbeliever, and that which 
was burned in the lamps, he says, was in all likelihood, some 
rancid fat fit for nothing else, and surely was not extracted from 
milk. 



SALTY AND FATTY CONDIMENTS 209 

The appraisal of that rich, nutritious aliment, and 
delicious condiment, cheese, merits so much more 
space than can be given it in this, that it will have 
to be examined in the next sketch. 



XV 

OF CHEESE 

"A dessert without cheese is a belle who lacks an eye." 

Tyrophilic diners, whose chief gastronomic maxim 
may well be "my cheese, my digestion," * lend your 
melodious strains to sound in harmony the praise of 
this precious aliment and savory condiment the use 
of which is believed to be very much older than civi- 
lisation, although the learned Father Polidore cannot 
trace it beyond Aristeus who, he says, "gathered the 
cruddes of milk and made cheese first"; to effect 
which that princely cheesemonger must have dis- 
covered the properties of at least two of the many 
equivalents of rennet as well as some mode of ex- 
pelling the whey and of pressing the curd into the 
wonted solid mass, or, what is more likely, all the 
needed information was handed down to his royal 
highness through many generations, by his distant 
trogloditic ancestor, chief of the far-famed Sour Juice 
Club, and possessor of great flocks of sheep whose 
milk he had probably converted into hard cheeses 

* "Why, my cheese, my digestion, why hast thou not served 
thyself in to my table so many meals?" . . . Achilles to 
Thersites in Troilus and Cressida, 2, 3. 

210 



CHEESE 211 

for winter food. This makes it clear that from very 
remote times cheese has been made and used as an 
aliment, wherever domesticable mammals could be 
found; the many varieties depending upon the char- 
acter and habits of the animals, the nature of the 
microbic ferment, and the mode of preparation and 
treatment of the product. Throughout Eastern pas- 
turable countries, ewes' milk or goats' milk has 
generally produced good cheese. Sicily was particu- 
larly noted for her cheese cakes and her delicately 
flavored cheeses which were so highly prized by all 
amateurs of tyros. Besides the many different kinds 
eaten, was the fresh cheese — trophalis — known as the 
"glory of fair Sicily." Athenaeus speaks of the high 
character of the Achaian cheese — "the delicious 
Tromilican" — made of goats' milk, and also of a 
"harsh-tasted cheese, which Euripides calls opias 
tyros, curdled by the juice (opos) of the fig tree." . . . 
Although ancient nations held cheese in high 
estimation, it is not likely that any of them manu- 
factured it on so large a scale as those of our time. 
No better idea of the extent of cheese making, and 
its use as a food stuff and condiment, can be 
formed than by casting a glance at the facts given 
of its production in the small territory of Great 
Britain and Ireland where its average annual out- 
put, up to the year 1885, is said to have been not 
less than eighty thousand tons (180,000,000 pounds) 
principally in Cheshire, Gloucestershire, Shropshire, 
and Derbyshire; Cheshire contributing fourteen thou- 



212 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

sand tons; Leicestershire producing the well known 
stilton, and Somersetshire the cheddar. Besides her 
domestic yield, England imports and consumes great 
quantities of every description of cheeses from this 
and other countries. According to the United States 
census of 1889, the output of cheese by all the 
States was 238,035,065 pounds; the State of New 
York alone contributing 119,762,496 pounds, or more 
than half the total amount for the U. S. In 1849 
the output from farms was 105,535,893 pounds; 
this steadily decreased until 1889 when it was only 
18,726,818 pounds. In the same year the farm 
cheese output of New York State was reduced to 
4,324,028 pounds. This decrease hi the production 
of farm cheese is owing to the fact that a very great 
part of the farms' milk has, for some time, been turned 
over to the many cheese factories that have sprung 
up in different parts of the country. The propor- 
tionately larger production and consumption of cheese 
in Great Britain than in the United States may be 
accounted for by the fact that it is one of the most 
common of the articles of diet of Englishmen, whereas 
Americans, who eat cheese sparingly, consume very 
much butter, whose output according to the U. S. 
census of 1889 was 1,024,223,468 pounds 'from 
farms only, and 181,284,916 pounds from the large 
creameries, making a total of 1,205,508,380, or 
more than five times as much butter as cheese pro- 
duced in the United States. New York State 
makes annually 112,727,515 pounds of butter chiefly 



CHEESE 213 

for home consumption, as against 119,762,496 
pounds of cheese, the major part of which being 
for exportation. Then, too, milk is used through- 
out this country in very great quantity as a common 
beverage, as a condiment in coffee and tea, and as 
a luxury in desserts, etc. The total production of 
milk (U. S. census) in 1889 was 5,210,125,567 gal- 
lons by 16,511,950 cows. In New York State alone 
1,440,230 cows during the year 1889 gave 663,719,240 
gallons of milk. .' . . 

Cheese in English, kase in German, kaas in Dutch, 
cacio in Italian, queso in Spanish, queixo in Portu- 
guese, all come from the Latin caseus; while the 
French fromage, and the Italian formaggio are derived 
from the vulgar Latin formaticum from the classical 
Latin forma, the vat in which the cheese takes its 
form. The modern Greek word for cheese is tyri 
from the Greek tyros. ... 

In Europe and in this country three primary 
classes of cheese are made; the soft, the firm, and 
the hard. The French, however, class cheeses as 
the soft fresh, the soft salted, the hard prepared cold, 
the hard prepared hot, and the strong or fermented. 
The percentage of water in soft cheeses varies from 
thirty-six to fifty-one; of casein and albumen from 
ten to twenty-five; of fat from twenty-one to forty; 
and of milk-sugar from four to fifteen. The variations 
of percentage of water in firm and hard cheeses range 
from twenty to forty; of casein, from twenty-five to 
forty-four; of fat, from fifteen to forty; and of milk- 



214 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

sugar from one to six. Parmesan,* which is the 
hardest of cheeses, contains twenty -seven of water; 
forty-four of casein, sixteen of fat; and six and a 
fraction of milk-sugar. The cream cheeses to be soon 
consumed are little if at all salted; while to those 
made for exportation a sufficiency of salt is added for 
their preservation. Among the many excellent fresh 
cheeses of France are the Petit Gervais, served for 
dessert in the Paris Cafes, the delicious Saint Gervais, 
sprinkled with powdered sugar, eaten from tiny cups 
at Blois, and the Brie, Camembert, and Pont l'Eveque 
salted for foreign markets. The cream cheese of 
Banbury in Oxfordshire owed its fame not only to 
its superexcellence but to its special notice by Shaks- 
peare and by Burton. When Master Slender — in the 
Merry Wives — accused the minions of Sir John of 
taking him to the tavern and adding "knockout 
drops" to his liquor and of picking his pockets, 
Bardolph, after a general denial of guilt, characterized 
him as a "Banbury cheese," which is soft and thin, 
all paring. Burton says: "Of all cheeses, I take that 
kind which we call Banbury cheese to be the best." 
In recent years excellent cream cheeses have been 
made in this country. The New Jersey imitations 

* In common with Parmesan, Suffolk cheese of old is said to 
have been of adamantine hardness, and besides was as poor as 
hard; hence the old saw: 

"Hunger will break through anything except Suffolk cheese." 
In Forby's Vocabulary, Suffolk cheese is made to lament its 
own hardness, as follows: 

"Those that made me were uncivil, 
For they made me harder than the devil. 
Knives won't cut me; fire won't sweat me; 
Dogs bark at me, but can't eat me." 



CHEESE 215 

of the Brie and Neuchatel are used in preference to 
the imported since these are seldom in fit condition 
when they reach us. It will probably not be long 
before good imitations of the Camembert and Pont 
l'Eveque will be produced in New York or Jersey. 
Already a cream cheese similar to the Petit Gervais 
made here, is eaten, generally served upon a biscuit, 
sometimes with one fourth of its bulk of Gruyere, 
and occasionally with sugar or with a sweet jam. 
Our American cottage cheese is well adapted to the 
confection of sweet cheese cakes made of light pastry. 
Among the many imported cheeses in this market 
are: the Swiss, Strasburger Minister, Sage,* English 
Dairy, Cheddar, Stilton, Gorgonzola, Roquefort, 
Edam, Leyden Spiced, Hamburger Kummel, Sapsago, 
Parmesan, Neuchatel, Columnier, Isigny, Brie, Ca- 
membert, Pont l'Eveque, Gervais, Romatour, Hol- 
land Gonda, Thuringer, Mainzer, Liederkranz and 
Koppen dessert cheeses, Bismarck, and the strong 
smelling fermented Limburger. The chief domestic 
cheeses are similar to the English, French, and Swiss, 
and some of them are excellent imitations of the 
foreign products, as the Schweizer, Dairy, Cheddar, 
Edam, Stilton, Neuchatel, Brie, and Gervais. Each 
locality has its own peculiar cheeses, and their quality 
and flavor are owing not only to the kind of milk used, 
to the aromatic spices sometimes added to the rennet, 
and to the mode of preparation, but to the native 
micro-organisms, as shown in the following excerpt. 

* Sage cheese is often called green cheese, but the term green 
cheese is usually applied to unripe cheese or to cream cheese. 



216 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

"ON THE FLAVOR OF CHEESES. 

"From Good Words. 

"It is a curious fact that certain districts produce 
certain flavored cheeses, and that those cheeses can- 
not be produced except in their respective localities. 
It is now explained that there are specific forms of 
bacteria indigenous to those districts and not found 
elsewhere, and it is the presence of these in the milk 
that gives the local flavor, and various experiments 
have been made to ascertain if it is possible to culti- 
vate these local bacteria and then transport them into 
districts producing inferior cheese. For instance, a 
certain cheese fungus has its home in Normandy, and 
probably in Normandy alone, and to its aid we are 
indebted for a certain kind of cheese. Cultures of 
this germ were obtained and sent into Holstein and 
artificially introduced into milk set aside for cheese- 
making. The result was not altogether satisfactory, 
for though at times the cheese had a good Normandy 
flavor, at other times it reverted, apparently without 
reason, into that of the local Holstein. Herr Hofel- 
meyer, the experimenter, speaks feelingly of the dis- 
appointing and unaccountable relapses brought about 
by the subtle influence of the bacteria of the place, 
an influence which hitherto has resisted the successful 
working of imported species. It may be noticed in 
passing that the organisms bringing about every form 
of cheese ripening are not necessarily all bacteria, 
though always belonging to the great group of the 



CHEESE 217 

fungi. Thus the distinctive flavors of Roquefort, 
Gorgonzola, Camembert, and Stilton are induced by 
a blue mold, a fungus designated Penicillium glaucum, 
a common enough variety found often on old boots, 
crusts, jams, etc., which ramifies in the cheese, and 
produces the striking blue veins and patches." 

The Roquefort cheese of southern France and other 
pungent cheeses made in Spain, are obtained from 
ewes' milk, where flocks of sheep abound and other 
cattle are scarce. Hence the old Spanish saw: 

"Queso de ovejas, leche de cabras, manteca de vacas. " 
" Cheese from the ewe, milk from the goat, butter from the cow." 

Cheese affords a striking example of the ordinary 
relation of host to habitation. To the tiny vegetable 
and animal denizens to whom it affords snug lodging 
and abundant food, a cheese is a vast world with 
ample caverns containing air, water, oil; whilst divers 
salts are included in its nitrogenous substance that 
serve as nutriment to innumerable forests of micro- 
bia eaten in salad by colonies of busy mites and 
dancing maggots that are themselves sometimes de- 
voured by swarms of ants, or by a greedy rodent, but 
generally by their gigantic enemy man, whose vorac- 
ity would seem insatiable to his diminutive victims 
if they could see him eat. There has long been a 
general but unwarranted belief that old cheese, to be 
good and palatable, must be more or less decomposed 
or infested with many sorts of parasites, hence the 
saying: 



218 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

"The richness of a cheese is discovered by the multiplicity of 
its mites." 

And Berchoux's lines in his poem La Gastronomie: 

"Le dessert est servi: quel brillant etalage! 
On a senti de loin cet enorme fromage 
Qui doit tout son merite aux outrages du temps." 



Hippocrates believed old cheese to produce flatu- 
lency and constipation and to heat the other articles 
of food; giving rise to crudities and indigestion, and 
being particularly injurious when eaten along with 
drink after a full meal. Celsus, too, expressed similar 
opinions and spoke of old cheese as one of the most 
unwholesome articles of diet. But of new soft cheese 
he thought better. Dioscorides, Galen, Pliny, and 
afterward Avicenna and other ancient authors had 
the same good opinion of unsalted new cheese which 
they regarded as very nutritious. Paul of Aegina 
also adopted the Hippocratic dicta, particularly about 
old cheese; saying that "old cheese is acrid, occasions 
thirst, is difficult to digest, forms bad chyme, and en- 
genders stones. That is best which is new, spongy, 
soft, sweet, and has a moderate share of salt. The 
opposite kind is the worst." * Of the medicinal 
properties of cheese the same author reiterates Galen's 
views and says: "Cheese, that which is new made, 
and soft, has repellent powers, cooling gently, so as 
when applied to agglutinate wounds. That called 

* The seven Books of Paulus Aegineta, Sydenham Society 
Edition, 1844. 



CHEESE £19 

oxygalactinous acquires slightly discutient powers 
in addition, and is more agglutinative of wounds. 
Old cheese, especially such as is fatty, becomes 
discutient, so as to be a fit application to tophi 
in arthritic complaints, particularly along with the 
decoction of swine's flesh pickled, and fat." Ebn 
Baithar wrote, at great length, of cheese as an article 
of food and as a medicinal agent,* and Avicenna 
recommended new cheese as an application in eye 
inflammation. The Salernum School, too, spoke its 
word about cheese eating: 

"Caseus est frigidus, stipans, grossus quoque, durus." 
"Caseus et panis, bonus est cibus hie bene sanis." 
•'Post pisces nux sit, post carnes caseus adsit." 

The long prevalent, but erroneous, notion that 
cheese is indigestible gave rise to the old medical 
aphorism : 

"Caseus est nequam quia concoquit omnia secum." 
Cheese is injurious because it digests all things with itself. 

It is, however, rendered in Ray's Proverbs (1670) as : 

"Cheese it is a peevish elfe, 
It digests all things but itself." 

This is quoted by Wadd in his Comments on Cor- 
pulency, and, with slight variations, by many other 
writers, notably Dr. Kitchiner, from whose work the 

*"The Laps make cheese of reindeer milk. They use it 
medicinally for coughs, etc., also hot as a liniment for bruises, 
and drink as a luxury a hot decoction of this cheese in the deer's 
milk." 

"Cheese is used for bait by anglers, as some fishes are very 
fond of it." 



220 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

following notes, kindly furnished by a deipnosophic 
correspondent, are inserted as testimony tending to 
show the fallacy of the assertion that cheese, itself 
indigestible, promotes digestion * 

"The learned Dr. Kitchinerf treats with much con- 
tempt the notion that cheese aids the digestion of 
food. In one place he says: 

'Others fancy their dinner cannot digest till they 
have closed the orifice of their stomach with a certain 
portion of cheese; if the preceding dinner has been a 
light one, a little bit of cheese after it may not do 
much harm, but its character for encouraging con- 
coction is undeserved: there is not a more absurd 
vulgar error than the oft-quoted proverb, that 

'Cheese is a surly elf, 
Digesting all things but itself/ 

and in a note he quotes a remark of Dr. Trotter: 'I 

would sooner encounter the prejudice of any sick 

man, rather than those of a nervous glutton.' 

In another place, pointing out the inconsistencies 

of peptic rules, he falls into poetry: 

'And though, as you think, to procure good digestion, 
A mouthful of cheese is the best thing in question, 
"In Gath do not tell, nor in Askalon blab it," 
You're strictly forbidden to eat a Welch-rabbit.'" 

* "Jack Jugler beats Jenkin and says: 

'Gentleman, are you disposed to eat any fist mete?' 

'Yet shall do a man of your dyet no harme to suppe twice 
This shall be your chise, to make your mete digest.'" 
t Kitchiner (William) Directions for invigorating and prolong- 
ing life (etc.) From 6th London edition. New York, 1831. 



CHEESE 221 

The idea of the alleged indigestibility of old cheese 
strongly prevailed in the sixteenth century, judging 
from the following adage in Bovilli's Proverbs and 
in the others counselling its very sparing use. 

" Le fromage n'est pas moins desplaisant que dommaigeable 
a table." 

"Fromage et melon au poids les prend-on." 

"Cheese is gold in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at 
night." — German 'proverb. 

"Tout fromage est sain 
S'il vient d'une chiche main." 

"Le fromage est bon et sain 
Que presente une avare main." 

— Le Due. 

The original being from the Salernum School, as 
follows : 

"Caseus est sanus quern dat avara manus." 
Cheese when given with a sparing hand is wholesome. 

Sir John Sinclair, in his Code of Health and 
Longevity, says of cheese that it is unsuited as food 
to children, and borne well only by those who take 
much and constant exercise, and that the richer the 
cheese the more nutritious, the leaner the more diffi- 
cult to digest. 

It is well known that the peasantry of many nations 
feed largely on new cheese and that among them in- 
digestion is not very common. Chiefly by reason 
of the contained micro-organisms, cheese not only 
digests itself but promotes the digestion of other 
food From the many ancient adages 



222 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

relating to cheese eating the following are culled; 
some of them showing with what freedom new cheese 
may be eaten. 

"Cheese and bread make the cheeks red." 
— German proverb. 

"Qui a fromage pour tous mets, 
Peut bien tattler bien espez." 

" Fromage et pain est medecine au sain." 

"Au romage et jambon. 
Cognoist-on voisin et compagnon." 

"Fromage pesant pain leger, 
Ne sont mauvais a manger." 

Among other cheese ana and proverbs are the 
following : 

"Fromage tout autant que pain, 
Ne fait pas un repas sain." 

" Fromage avec pain et poire, 
Ne veulent estre mangez sans boire." 

"Entre la poire et le fromage." 

That is, toward the end of a feast when jollity 
begins, or confidential talk seems opportune. In his 
Dictionnaire Comique, Le Roux has it : 

"Entre le fromage et la poire 
Chacun dit sa chanson a boire." 

And Le Due in his Proverbes en Rimes, 1665: 

" Entre la poyre et le fromage, 
Discours de fol et de sage." 



CHEESE 223 

" Bread and cheese is all very well, but cheese and cheese is 
no sense." Said of two ladies kissing each other. — Dictionary 
of English Dialect. 

"To give chalk for cheese" is to pass an inferior 
for a superior article. 

"To know chalk from cheese." — Luke Shepherd's John Bon 
and Mast. Person, 1551. 

''For thoughe I haue no learning, yet I know chese from 
chalke . ' ' — H azlitt. 

"The moon is made of green cheese/' says Hazlitt, 
in his English Proverbs, occurs in "Jack Juggler," 
A dialogue wherein is plainly layd open the tyran- 
nicall dealing of Lord Bishops against God's chil- 
dren (1589). 

"Green cheese, cream cheese. Fools and children 
are told that the moon is made of this material. 'To 
make one swallow a gudgeon, or believe a he, and that 
the moon is made of green cheese/ " appears in Florio's 
works, quoted by Halliwell in his Dictionary of 
Archaic and Proverbial Words. Under the head 
gudgeon — "to swallow a gudgeon, is to be caught or 
deceived, to be made a fool of. A gudgeon was also 
a term for a lie (as appears in Florio, p. 476) and some- 
times a joke or a taunt." (Halliwell.) 

"The moon made of green cheese," ascribed to 
Rabelais, in the English edition, Book I, Chapter XI, 
anent the adolescence of Gargantua, seems to be an 
interpolation of the translators, Urquhart and Mot- 
teux. This English version has it that the young 



224 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Gargantua . . . "would beat the bushes with- 
out catching the birds, thought the moon ivas made of 
green cheese* and that bladders were lanterns." 

In the several French editions examined, fromage 
(cheese) does not occur anywhere in Chapter XI of 
the first Book. In the three phrases of these French 
editions there is not a word to warrant the English 
rendering of Urquhart and Motteux, and the following 
is the exact language of Rabelais : . . . "battait 
les buissons sans prendre les ozillons, croyait que les 
nues fussent paelles d'arain, et que les vessies fussent 
lanternes." ... In the tenth phrase below this, 
the moon is referred to as follows: "gardait la lime 
des loups," which the glossary gives as a proverbial 
locution, meaning, to take needless care. This al- 
leged composition of fair luna was and is on the lips 
of the facetious only of English speech. The question 
is whether the locution has been used by Greek, Latin, 
or other nations. Possibly some castanean pandits 
may be able to discover it among mouldy parchments 
or Chaldean or Egyptian remains. 

Samuel Butler expresses a negative opinion as to 

* In the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, the following occurs: 
"He cries for the moon, i. e., He craves to have what is wholly 
beyond his reach. The allusion is to foolish children who want 
the moon for a plaything. The French say: He wants to take 
the moon between his teeth (II vent prendre la lune avec les dents) 
alluding to the old proverb about 'The moon' and 'a green 
cheese.' " There surely is no rational ground for the assumption 
that to wish to take the moon with the teeth is at all suggestive 
of any particular composition of the satellite. If Rabelais had 
thought of this or had cared to use the idea of the caseous nature 
of the moon, he would assuredly have done so. 



CHEESE ' 225 

the moon's make-up which he credits to the "con- 
jurer" of whom he writes in Hudibras, Part II, Canto 
III, lines 261-266: 

"He made an instrument to know 
If the moon shine at full or no; 
That wou'd as soon as e'er she shone straight 
Whether 'twere day or night demonstrate; 
Tell what d'meter t' an inch is, 
And prove that she's not made of green cheese." 

It has been suggested that the saying — the moon is 
made of green cheese — possibly arose from the old 
belief that "digestion depends on putrefaction, and 
that since the moon has putrefying properties, the 
principal meal should be taken at night in order that 
digestion be thereby promoted as it is by putrefying 
green cheese, and that therefore the moon must 
necessarily be made of green cheese." 

The allusion to the moon, in connection with cheese, 
by Martial, must be taken only for what it seems 
worth. Epigram XXX, Book XIII. A cheese from 
Luna. 

"This cheese, marked with the likeness of the 
Etruscan Luna * will serve your slaves a thousand 
times for breakfast." 

Consumed so largely as a condiment, aliment, and 
luxurious dessert from time immemorial, it is not 
strange that cheese should play such an important 
part in commerce. The modes of using this precious 

* " Luna (was) a town in Etruria. The mark on the cheese 
was probably some likeness or emblem of the moon, or Diana." 



226 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

substance are so many that only a few of them can be 
referred to in a brief essay. 

In Italy the well-known hard cheese of Parma, 
styled cacio parmigiano, has long been employed as a 
condiment to the daily dish of macaroni and to many 
viands. Other nations have used it in these ways 
as well as to flavor soups and some dainty dishes. 
Sundry English and American hard cheeses have, in 
a measure, subserved these purposes but fail to re- 
place the tasty Parmesan whose flavor is best adapted 
to macaroni, spaghetti, and certain broths. . . . 

On bread and cheese with a slice of onion, peasants 
of many districts of Europe live almost entirely, and, 
as a luxury, toast their slice of cheese spitted at the 
end of a forked stick held before a brisk fire. The 
peasant soldiery of old often used their swords for 
this purpose and called them cheese toasters. 

Corporal Nym to Lieutenant Barclolph (Henry V, 
2, 1) says: . . . "I dare not fight; but I will 
wink and hold out mine iron : it is a simple one ; but 
what though? it will toast cheese, and it will endure 
cold as another man's sword will." . . . 

It is not unlikely that cheese, toasted at the end of 
a fork, stick, or sword, before a blazing wood fire, 
often becomes well saturated with smoke which may 
be to the liking of the rustic or the soldier. But 
smoked cheese seems to have been regarded as a lux- 
ury among the higher classes of Romans, as it ap- 
pears from Martial's epigram XXXII, in Book XIII 
on Smoked Cheese, as follows: 



CHEESE 227 

" It is not every hearth or every smoke that is suited 
to cheese; but the cheese that imbibes the smoke of 
the Velabrum * is excellent." 

Toasted cheese was also eaten by epicures and this 
same Martial seems to have enjoyed Trebula cheeses 
in that form and makes them sing their own praise : 

"Trebula gave us birth; a double merit recommends us, for 
whether toasted at a gentle fire or softened in water, we are 
equally good." 

The very radical difference between toasted and 
melted cheese is generally appreciated by good cooks 
and by connoisseurs: the first being quickly parched 
without losing its form. Fat Jack, in the Merry 
Wives, 5, 5, says : " 'Tis time I were choked with a 
piece of toasted cheese" ; while the second is gradually 
heated, cooked to fluence, with the addition of very 
little ale or beer, and poured from the pan upon a 
slice of toasted bread. Served in this manner, it is 
known as a Welsh-rabbit (not rare-bit) . In regard to 
the jocular character of this term, the Century 
Dictionary quotes the following from Macmillan's 
Magazine: " Welsh-rabbit is a genuine slang term, 
belonging to a large group which describes in the same 
humorous way the special dish or product or pecu- 
liarity of a particular district. For examples: . . . 
an Essex lion is a calf; a Fieldlane duck is a baked 
sheep's head; Glasgow magistrates or Norfolk capons 
are red herrings; Irish apricots or Munster plums are 
potatoes; Gravesend sweetmeats are shrimps." The 

* "A place near Rome abounding with shops." 



228 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

varieties of Welsh-rabbit are many. Among them is 
the golden buck, consisting of a superposed poached 
egg to the rabbit; and the "slip-on," the melted 
cheese being poured upon a hot mince pie. Another 
common variety consists in the addition to the 
rabbit of a thin broiled slice of ham or a bit of fried 
bacon. . . . 

The subject cheese should not be dismissed without 
some reference to the excellent cheese pudding known 
as fondue and which seems to have originated in 
Switzerland. Savarin says of this delicacy that it is 
not only of quick confection but wholesome, savory, 
and appetising; and should not be eaten with a spoon 
but with a fork.* The Swiss formula was extracted 
by Savarin from the papers of M. Trollet of the Can- 
ton of Berne, and is substantially as follows: 

Weigh the number of eggs suitable to the number 
of guests; add a piece of Gruyere cheese one-third 
the weight of the eggs, and a lump of butter one-sixth 
of this weight. The eggs are broken and well beaten 
in a stewpan; the butter is added; and the cheese, 
thinly sliced or grated, is thrown in; the pan is then 
placed upon a brisk fire and the mixture stirred con- 
stantly with a spatula until the cheese is melted and 
well incorporated with the eggs. A liberal allowance 
of black pepper is requisite, but very little, if any, salt 
need be used. The pudding must be served upon hot 
plates and eaten hot. The chafing dish is sometimes 

* "II y eut des novateurs qui prirent le parti de la cuiller, 
maisils furent bientot oubli6s: la fourchette triompha." . . . 



CHEESE 229 

used for this preparation. There are many various 
ways of preparing the delicate aliment, but in this 
castanean town is a lovely lady who makes a fond?'* 
which is a food fit for father Jupiter and all other gas- 
tronomic Gods in and out of Elysium. That good 
angel's receipt is substantially as follows: 

A FONDUE FOR EIGHT PERSONS. 

Ingredients. Eight ounces of any tasty firm cheese, 
two ounces of butter, four ounces of bread crumbs, 
eight ounces of milk, three eggs, very little salt. 

Mode of Preparation. Break up the cheese, butter, 
and bread crumbs into the smallest bits in a large 
bowl; pour in the milk scalding, add the salt, then 
the yolks of the eggs well beaten; stir the mixture, 
and keep it covered on the back of the "cooking 
range" until the ingredients are incorporated, when 
the whites of the eggs, beaten lightly, are stirred in; 
finally the confection is poured into porcelain cups 
and baked for about ten minutes. 

To be served hot without delay. 

Made by fair hands, this marvelous fondue of cheese 
nearly as light as whipped cream, awakens such de- 
lightful gastronomic sensations as to invite the im- 
bibition of the most delicate of wines. 



XVI 

OF SOUR CONDIMENTS 

"Every white will have its black 
And every sweet its sour." 

In continuing the examination of condiments, it 
would be flagrantly ungrateful to omit the following 
veracious statement of an interesting incident in the 
eventful career of our eminently respectable ancestor, 
the lineal ascendant from the aristocratic progeny 
of the venerable patriarch Pithecanthropus Erectus. 
His mansion was a vast cavern, in the heart of a lofty 
mountain, richly ornamented with numberless stalac- 
tites and intended not only for the lodgment of his 
large family, but for the protection of his flocks and 
simian domestics from nightly incursions of ferocious 
beasts. He was the king of epicures of his time and 
the happy observer of the herbivorous discoverer of 
the salty condiment. 

In the first decade of his reign, having found a new 
condiment, he determined to celebrate convivially 
the startling event by a grand entertainment, and 
accordingly summoned a select company of four hun- 
dred neighboring troglodites to the magnificent feast, 
for the first hour of the ninth full moon, in order to 
introduce with suitable solemnity into polite society 

230 



SOUK CONDIMENTS 231 

a new gastronomic sensation. The sumptuous repast 
was served by chimpanzees gaily attired with wreaths 
of bright colored flowers around their necks and rich 
plumes on their heads, in the largest of the immense 
halls of the intra-montane palace, and began with the 
munching of salted parched locusts with wormwood 
cocktail accompaniment followed by a marmot soup, 
flavored with acid sumach berries, ladled in highly 
ornamented skull-caps and sipped from spoons made 
of tiny gourds; this being the very beginning of 
spooning victuals* The next course consisted of a 
full grown hippopotamus, baked in a deep pit of hot 
ashes, filled with sucking pigs, each of which was 
stuffed with mushrooms and acid berries; this great 
river horse being flanked with huge calabashes of 
boiled and salted greens and an immensity of a kind 
of bread-fruit. After this course, split marrow bones 
with some attached flesh were brought in and eaten 
with a pungent grass, salt and the acid juice of the 
favorite berries as an additional appetiser for the 
scores of roasted buzzards inside of each of which was 
a crow; inside of the crow a small owl; inside of the 
owl a sparrow; inside of the sparrow a field mouse; 
and inside of the mouse a tiny chestnut; f served 

* Professor Petrie, the eminent Egyptologist, says that 
"spoons of ivory, and rarely of precious metals, were made" 
in Egypt more than six thousand years ago. 

fThis dish and many others of a similar sort used by good 
livers, from time immemorial, very probably suggested to the 
French the roti a Uimperatrice, about which the following in 
substance, appeared in the Almanack Perpetuel des Gourmands, 
1830. . . . "Let us hope that the intrepid adept who 
heeds us shall extract the kernel from an olive and fill the vacant 



232 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

with a sumach flavored sauce made of a puree of 
polecat livers and horse-chestnuts. The drink was 
cocoanut milk duly acidulated, and the dessert 
soursops galore. The host then delivered a short 
address on the past, present, and future condiments, 
and predicted for the sour a universal use and the 
highest appreciation by nations yet unborn. After 
a searching examination of, and an exhaustive dis- 
cussion on, this interesting subject, the guests all 
declared the sour condiment to be the greatest anti- 
dyspeptic discovery of the age, and voted to establish 
a sodality, which they called the Amlarasa or Sour 
Juice Club,* for mensual refection, with the further 
object of studying the old and discovering new condi- 
ments likely to render eating more pleasurable and 
digestion more facile. Such, unquestionably, is the 
origin of the idea of forming the many existing dining 
clubs. 
As pertinent to the discovery of condiments, and 

space with a fillet of anchovy, shall then place the fruit thus 
stuffed in a lark, which shall enter a quail, which shall be con- 
tained by a partridge to be hidden in the flanks of a pheasant, 
which in turn shall disappear within a turkey that a sucking 
pig shall enclose. A brilliant fire shall combine the divers 
juices of these enchased viands, and the hour has arrived to serve 
this precious mixture .... Then let the olfactive sense 
enjoy alone the perfume exhaled by the roast, and cause all to 
be pitched out of the window, except the olive which has become 
the centre of the quintessence of the elements by which it was 
surrounded. He shall eat this olive, or perhaps only the an- 
chovy, and almost faint with pleasure." 

* Long before the discovery of acetous fermentation, the sour 
juice of unripe fruit was used as a condiment. Verjus (vert jus) 
verjuice, i. e., the juice of green vegetable substances, is often 
mentioned by writers in the middle ages and even in later 
times. 



SOUR CONDIMENTS 233 

as showing the love of periodical rustication to be 
a true atavistic trait, it is only necessary to trace the 
ascent of man from pithecanthropus to the cave 
dweller, whose discovery of the sour condiment has 
been such a great boon to epicures, but the branches 
of the genealogic tree may be extended to the present 
time. Thus the mushroom-eating habitant of the 
plains engendered the root eating valley denizen, who 
was the precursor of the nut-eating tree tenant, who 
was the progenitor of the flesh-eating cave-dweller, 
who was the sire of the fish-eating lake-resident, who 
was the parent of the cheese and onion eating villager, 
who was the father of the omnivorous big-bellied 
burgher, whose great-grandsons, to this day, for 
recreation, are wont to spend many weeks in the wil- 
derness in hunting and fishing, and who flavor their 
luscious bean soup with acid fruit juice, stuff their 
fish with nuts, coat them with clay,* and bake them 
in the ashes, while the saddle of venison is roasted 
and basted with dripping fat, each huge portion being 
seasoned with salt, pepper, and lemon juice or with 
vinegar when the store of fruit is exhausted. The 

* This rural mode of cooking fish is given in " Kaloolah" 
toward the close of the sixth chapter. Joe Downs loquitur. 
" You take some nice, clean clay and work it up a little, then catch 
your trout, or any other kind of fish, and don't scale or dress 
him, but just plaster him all over with the clay about an inch 
thick, and put him right into the hot ashes. When he's done, 
the clay and scales will all peel off, and you'll have a dish that 
would bring to life any starved man, if he hadn't been dead 
more nor a week . . . but if you want an extra touch, 
cut a hole in him and stick in a piece of salt pork or bear's fat, 
and a few beachnuts, or the meat of walnuts or butternuts, 
and Lord bless you, you'd think you was eating a water angel." 



234 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

meal is always enjoyed with a relish and appetite that 
come of open air living and enforced physical exertion. 

Ye modern deipnophilists know well how essential 
citric acid, as contained in the juice of fresh lemons 
or limes, is to modern cookery, and how much it is 
esteemed by epicureans of our time for flavoring 
salads preferably to vinegar. You know, too, what 
an important part the lemon plays in the decoration 
of many dainty dishes; how indispensable it is to 
the ostreophagist; how effective it is in turtle* 
soup and in nearly all fish sauces; how necessary an 
ingredient in well concocted punch; and what a 
pleasant, wholesome beverage it makes, either sweet- 
ened or salted, particularly in warm weather and at sea. 

Vinegar, from vinaigre, vin aigre, vinum acrum, 
sour wine, oxos, acetum, impure acetic acid, appears 
to be a much later discovery. It is clear from its 
name that this condiment, although nascent in some 
fruits, was not known until acetous was distinguished 
from vinous fermentation; a use being found soon 
thereafter for the spoiled wine.t This had in all 

* In the West Indies, the preparation of green turtle for cala- 
pee or for steaks is an event of no little import in the family. 
After decapitating the monstrous amphibian and removing the 
plastron or ventral shell, he is treated with a profusion of sliced 
lemons with which, and with a liberal allowance of salt, all ac- 
cessible soft parts are rubbed. When he is finally cut up for 
cooking, each section is rubbed freely with lemons, then with salt 
and pepper. These preliminary steps are necessary in the 
tropics to prevent fly-blowing or rapid decomposition, 
t Of vinegar, Martial says : 

"Egyptian vinegar despise not thou: 
When it was wine, 'twas far more vile than now." 

— Wright's metrical version. 



SOUR CONDIMENTS 235 

likelihood occurred to the youthful anthropoid dis- 
coverer of fermentation who had more than once 
negligently allowed his decoctions to stand too long, 
and tasting, found them pungent and sour, but freely 
diluting and salting the product into a palatable 
vinegrade, doubtless swallowed large draughts of the 
mixture with quite as much pleasure and refreshment 
as does the modern teetotaller his sweet lemonade 
with a "stick" therein. 

The foregoing statement gives some idea of the great 
antiquity of the use of vinegar as a beverage. Ever 
since its employment as a condiment, men have sub- 
stituted it for wine. The poorer classes among the 
Egyptians, who could not afford wine or beer, drank 
posca, which was vinegar mixed with water. This 
was also the common tipple of the slaves and Roman 
soldiers. Their generals, for popularity's sake, drank 
it publicly, but had their wine in private. In the 
field the habitual beverage of the soldiers of the Em- 
peror Hadrian was diluted acetum which was called 
posca. Diluted oxymel was also a favorite drink in 
ancient times; and in later years raspberry vinegar 
in iced water. . . . 

To greatly multiply the praises of sour condiments 
would be superfluous, since their excellence is so well 
known to good livers and their value in sauces so well 
recognised by urban and rural cooks. You will surely 
remember how highly the far famed uncle Ebenezer 
appreciated the sour when, one autumn evening, he 
had made the most elaborate preparations to cook his 



236 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

supper, which was to consist of a fat possum dressed 
with the choicest cider vinegar, the purest salt from the 
nearest lick, and the tastiest and hottest kind of green 
pepper. Alas! from enjoying the good things provided 
at such pains, he was unfortunately prevented by a 
nocturnal marauder. It happened just as uncle Eben 
was giving the last turns to the spit, that Queen Mab 
crossed his lids, and one of her ravenous followers, 
taking advantage of the profundity and length of the 
old man's sleep, engulphed possum, sweet potatoes and 
ash cake into his vast paunch, as we have been told so 
admirably and never-too-often by a dear Beatic exe- 
getist who always adds with expressive idiom and 
appropriate gesture, that when uncle Eben awoke 
to find the potatoes and ash cake gone and the pan 
to contain only well picked bones, and his fingers 
and lips coated with gravy, exclaimed that if he had 
really eaten the possum, sweet potatoes and ash cake, 
they certainly lay very lightly on his stomach and 
were less satisfying than any food he had ever 
taken. . . . 

It is an interesting fact to the student of etymons, 
that, in many languages of the past and present, the 
property of sourness has given to this condiment 
the name which it bears. Thus, in Sanskrit, vinegar 
is cukta, which signifies sour; in Arabic, khall, sour; 
in Greek, oxos, from oxys, sharp, pungent, sour, but 
sometimes, euphemisticly, hedos, from hedys (modern 
Greek, hidi) sweet, or glycadion, from glycos, sweet; 
(the commentator of Paul of Aegina's works is, 



SOUR CONDIMENTS 237 

however, "inclined to think that glycadion is the dim- 
inutive of gleucos must; vinegar being the juice of the 
grape which has lost its strength") in Latin, acetum 
is from acer, sharp, pungent, sour; in French, vinaigre, 
vin aigre, is from vinum acrum, sour wine; * in Italian, 
vinagro or aceto; in Spanish and Portuguese, vinagre; 
in German, essig, from acetum; in Dutch, azyn, from 
acetum; in Russian, uksus, from oxys, sour; in Bo- 
hemian and Polish, ocet, from acetum; in Servian 
and Croatian, ocat, from acetum; in Swedish, attika, 
from acetum; in Norwegian and Danish, vineddike, 
from vinum acrum; in Persian and Hindustani, 
sirka, sour; and in Malealim, chuca, from cukta, sour. 
Vinous must necessarily precede acetous fermenta- 
tion; acetic acid being formed at the expense of the 
alcohol which is produced by any one of the several 
particular species of micro-organisms, but mainly 
by the Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Brewer's yeast). 

* The word in old French was aisil, esil; in old Saxon, ecid; 
in Anglo-Saxon, eced; in middle and in early modern English 
eisel and eysell, all from acetum; and occurs in many writings 
notably in the " Romaunt of the Rose." 

"Kneden with eisel strong and egre, 
And thereto she was lene and megre." 

In Hamlet V, i, 299: 

"Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?" 

And in Sonnet CXI, 8: 

"Pity me then and wish I were renewed; 
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink 
Potions of eisel 'gainst my own infection; 
No bitterness that I will bitter think, 
Nor double penance, to correct correction." 



238 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

When the fluid (wine, beer, or cider) is invaded by 
the Mycodermata aceti (vinegar plants) these increase 
rapidly, cause oxydation of the alcohol, and vinegar 
(dilute acetic acid) is the outcome; alcohol being 
C 2 H 6 and acetic acid C 2 H 4 2 * 

Acetic acid is said to exist ready formed (free or 
combined) in many plants, notably the Sambucus 
Nigra, Phoenix Dactylifera, and Rhus Typhina. Of 
the manufactured vinegars, the principal kinds in 
the shops are the wine, malt, cider, sugar, and wood 
vinegars. The best for table use is the white-wine 
vinegar, which like the other sorts contains about 
five per centum of acetic acid to which it owes its 
chief property. It is often flavored with tarragon 
and other substances. Like many of the articles 
of man's dietary, vinegar undergoes with age such 
alterations as to become worthless; particularly when 
kept in imperfectly closed cruets. It is then invaded 
by innumerable colonies of the anaerobic variety of 
the Micrococcus aceti which settle to the bottom 
of the vessel in the form of a glutinous mass called 
the mother of vinegar. On the surface of the spoiled 
vinegar appear colonies of the aerobic Micrococcus 
aceti known as the flowers of vinegar. Animal life is 
also developed in old vinegar in the form of the vine- 
gar eel, or Anguillula aceti glutinis, a minute nematoid 
worm about two millimeters in length. Decayed 
vinegar attracts members of the Darosophilidce family 
of dipterous insects among which is the vinegar fly 

* Empyrical formulae. 



SOUK CONDIMENTS 239 

which invades neglected pickles and preserved fruits 
that have undergone acetous fermentation. 

Vinegar has long been used as an antidote to mush- 
room and other poisons. It is perfumed for toilet 
purposes, and aromatised with camphor, garlic and 
other ingredients, to be used as a "preventive of in- 
fectious diseases," under the name of the four thieves' 
vinegar, which it owes to the fact that during the 
plague of Marseilles, four notorious thieves who had 
been taken up for rifling the bodies of the dead from 
house to house, had confessed, under promise of par- 
don, that their immunity from the dread disease was 
due to the habit of constantly inhaling the aromatised 
vinegar and sprinkling their garments with this same 
vinegar. 

The metaphoric uses of vinegar are many. Among 
them are the following: 

X . . . is all gall and vinegar; i. e. his humor 
is both bitter and sour. 

Y . . . was made to sweat vinegar; i. e. he 
was tortured by words and deeds. 

Z . . . wore vinegar raiments; i. e. clothing 
too light for the existing low temperature. 

More flies are taken with honey than with vinegar. 
The meaning of this very ancient adage is too well 
known to require explanation. 

Good wine makes good vinegar is employed to 
express briefly the idea that the best use is to be made 
only of the best things. 



240 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Season not thy words with vinegar, since, in life, 
there is already too much acrimony. 

"Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time: 
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes 
And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper, 
And other of such vinegar aspect 
That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile, 
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable." 
— Merchant of Venice, I, 1. 



XVII 

OF PUNGENT AND AROMATIC CONDIMENTS 

" Variety's the very spiee of life 
That gives it all its flavour." 

The next condiments discovered, says Deip- 
nophilus, were certain hot, pungent berries suggestful 
of the sharp taste, only more so, of the cressy grasses 
with which were eaten the marrow bones served at 
the gorgeous feast given in the vast sub-terraneous 
palace by his Majesty, the great trogloditic epicure, 
to celebrate the finding of the sour condiment. 

At the first convocation of the members of the 
Sour Juice Club, one of its founders, learned in botany, 
presented many specimens of different species and 
varieties of pungent berries which, added to food were 
eaten with great relish, though when powdered they 
acted fiercely upon the buccal membrane and lachry- 
mal glands and brought on prolonged fits of sneezing 
that elicited a general cry of God bless ye. He then 
opened a parle on these delicatessen in characteristic 
amlarasan manner, as follows: "0! thou Royal 
Master, offspring of the bright luminary of day, father 
and guiding star of thy loving people, thou whose 
taste for luxurious aliments, art, ornament, raiment, 
and adornment is so exquisitely refined, whose super- 

24] 



242 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

acute audition on the dexter side enables thee to 
hear the shrillest hum of the invisible gnat, while on 
the sinister side thou perceivest the gravest notes of 
the far away bellowing leviathan and the most distant 
thunder,* whose subtile olfaction discerns all grades 
of perfumes even the infinitesimal variations of the 
component odors emitted by the cat-like hermit who 
is wont to visit the poultry yard nocturnally ; | thou 

* It is said that the notes of a bellowing whale are so grave 
that they cannot be heard by the unaided human ear. It is 
also said that the ear of man is ill adapted to perceive the shrill 
hum of certain diminutive insects or of the highest notes of cer- 
tain whistles used in physical experiments. In some cases the 
hearing is obtuse on one side and acute on the other, and these 
anomalies do not always result from disease. 

f The Japanese indulge in a game of perfumes consisting, 
in part at least, of igniting slips of combustible substances im- 
pregnated with different odoriferous agents. 

In the forty-seventh chapter of " Kaloolah" the following 
chestnut occurs: . . . . "At the conclusion of the piece, 
the Prince inquired whether I should not like to witness a per- 
formance upon the perfume machine, which had often been 
the subject of conversation between us. I at once assented, 
and rising, we all repaired by a short passage to a low, narrow, 
but very long hall. . . . There were more than fifty distinct 
perfumes, that stood in the same relation to each other that tones 
and semi-tones do to the different parts of the scale in music. 
The harmonic combinations of these were infinite. There are 
also several fundamental and controlling odors by which the 
whole scale can be modified at pleasure. The three principals 
of these are garlic, musk, and sulphuretted hydrogen. The gar- 
lic, which corresponds to the minor key in music, is exceedingly 
plaintive and affecting. Compositions in this key almost in- 
variably excite the smeller to tears. Compositions in the musk 
key are very varied in their expression; sometimes grave and 
solemn, like church music, at other times gay, lively, and redolent 
of chalked floors and gas lights. Compositions in the sulphuret- 
ted hydrogen key have invariably a spirit-stirring and martial 
expression. It is the proper key for odorate marches, battle- 
pieces, and storm rondos. The Christian reader, with an unedu- 
cated sense of smell, may, perhaps, turn up his nose (in profound 
ignorance of his nose's capacities) at the instrument I am de- 
scribing; but if he should ever have an opportunity of snuffing 



PUNGENT AND AROMATIC CONDIMENTS 243 

whose keen vision descries the most delicate and 
diversified tints,* and peers into the deepest recesses 
of mundane affairs, whose marvellous, magnetic, 
magical touch so speedily cures all ills to which human 
or simian flesh is heir, whose graceful gestures and 
eloquent, rhythmical, melodious speech, so pregnant 
with wisdom, ever entrance the hearer and compel his 
attention by thus infinitely gratifying his senses of 
sight and hearing, whose comprehensive mind is vast 
as space, and whose steadfast will is powerful as the 

the melodious streams and harmonic accords evolved by a good 
performer upon a properly constructed instrument, he would be 
compelled to admit that his nasal organ was given to him for 
a higher purpose than to take snuff, support spectacles, or 
express contempt. True, at first he may not appreciate the 
more recondite combinations and delicate aperfumes any more 
than a novice in music appreciates the scientific arrangement 
of notes in Italian or German opera, but he will at once be able 
to understand and admire the easy melodies, the natural suc- 
cession of simple fragrances, and, in time, the cultivated sensi- 
bility of his nasal organ will enable him to comprehend the more 
elaborate harmonies, the most subtile and artificial odoriferous 
correspondence and modulations. 

The name of this instrument is the Ristum-Kitherum, which, 
if my recollection of the Greek serves me, is very much like two 
words in that language, signifying a nose and a harp. . . . 
For some time I sat, the complete verification . . . of an 
observation, I think by Hazlet, that odors, better than the sub- 
jects of the other senses, serve as links in the chain of associa- 
tion. A series of staccato passages amid bergamot, lemon, 
orange, cinnamon, and other familiar perfumes, quite entranced 
me, while a succession of double shakes on the attar of rose 
made me fancy, for a moment, that the joyous breath of a bright 
spring morning was once more dashing the odors of that old 

sweet briar bush into the open window of my chamber at O . 

. . . I withdrew to my chamber, where, revolving in my mind 
the question whether odors, instead of being material emanations, 
may not be like light or sound, mere vibrations propagated in 
an elastic medium. . . . I was soon in a sound sleep." . . 

* The sense of color is so highly cultivated^ among the Japan- 
ese that they are said to be able to perceive seven hundred 
distinct tints. 



244 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

winds; and ye loyal Princes, pithecoid inheritors of 
the form and traits of anthropoid ancestors, ye sons 
of the great king who believes each of ye to be his, 
"partly on your (dam's) word, partly (his) own opin- 
ion, but chiefly (by) a villainous trick in your eye and 
a foolish hanging of your nether lip; and ye noble gas- 
trodic and pithecocephalic Lords, fawning, cunning, 
crafty courtiers; and ye gallant, arrant knights, of 
the doleful countenance; and ye fat, fatuous, but 
faithful squires; and ye devoted embrontetic sub- 
jects of the mighty monarch : all ye, new-condimental- 
sensation-seeking amlarasa lovers, 0! list ye to my 
prosy phrase and be silent that you may hear; 
hearken to my verbose speech and be attentive that 
ye may heed ! It is for your superlatively great delec- 
tation that I have wandered many days in the quasi 
impenetrable jungle to gather these pungent palatine 
titillators, these potent promoters of appetite, these 
propitious persuaders of digestion, these prodigious 
provocatives of thirst, which I ask you to name, now 
that you have tested their attractive forms ocularly, 
their consistence tactilely, their balmy fragrance 
olfactively, and their piquant savor gustatively, au 
naturel, with salt, with the royal sour juice, and mixed 
with your aliments to which they have imparted their 
precious properties !" * . . . 

The botanist then described in detail the habitat 
and peculiarities of these several kinds of pungent 
fruits and placed them in their proper order, genera, 

* Characteristic sophomoric style. 



PUNGENT AND AROMATIC CONDIMENTS 245 

species and varieties. Their properties and uses as 
condiments were afterward learnedly commented upon 
and, as the question of generic names came up, a 
facetious member said that as he tasted the different 
sorts, each had its own savor but imparted the same 
hot, pungent, puckery, buccal sensation varying, 
however, in intensity, and that he could not express 
this feeling except with the words pr, pi-pr, pi-pir, 
pir-par, pi-pal, pil-pal, pi-pil, and said, ! Amlarasan 
Brothers, again taste ye these lachrymogenic, mouth 
puckering, throat corrugating, sternutatory dainties 
and take your choice among the names. But, as 
they failed to agree, the presiding Monarch decided 
the question by ordering that the generic name be 
pipar; and this name has been handed down to nearly 
all the earthly nations with slight modifications as 
follows: the word pepper being, in Sanskrit, pippala 
(the fruit of the holy fig tree); in Persian, pulpul; 
in Arabic, fulful; in Turkish, biber; in Greek, peperi; 
in Epirotic dialect, bibeer; in Latin, piper; in French, 
poivre; in Italian, pepe; in Spanish, pimienta; in 
Portuguese, pimenta; in German, pfejfer; in Russian, 
peretsu; in Dutch, peper; in Swedish, peppar; in 
Norwegian and Danish, peber; in Icelandic, piparr; 
in Lithuanian, pipiras; in Anglo Saxon, pipor, 
piper; in old Bulgarian, piprii; in Servian, papar; 
in Bohemian, peprzh; in Polish, pieprz; in Walla- 
chian, piperiul, and in Hungarian, paprika. 

In modern times two classes of peppers are recog- 
nised : (a) Members of the piperacese. (6) Members 



246 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

of the solanaecse family of which capsicum is a 
genus. 

(a) The Piperacese family consists of Piper-nigrum, 
P. longum, P. cubeba, P. angustifolium, P. methysti- 
cum, P. Betle and other species; the drupes of the 
first two species only being now used as condiments. 
The black pepper plant, say Fliieckiger and Hanbury, 
is a perennial climbing shrub, with jointed stems 
branching dichotomously, and broadly ovate, five 
to seven nerved stalked leaves. The slender flower- 
spikes are opposite the leaves, stalked, and from 
three to six inches long, and the fruits are sessile 
and fleshy. It is indigenous of the forests of 
Travancore and Malabar, whence it has been intro- 
duced into Sumatra, Java, Borneo, the Malay 
Peninsula, Siam, the Philippines, and the West 
Indies. They further say that "long and black 
pepper are among the Indian spices on which the 
Romans levied duty at Alexandria about A. D. 176." 

According to Athenaeus, pepper was freely used as 
a condiment and as a medicinal agent by the Greeks, 
and he quotes Antiphanes (404 to 330 B. C.) as 
saying: 

" If any one buys pepper and brings it home, 
They torture him by law like any spy." 

And Nicander (2nd Cent. B. C.) in his Theriaca: 

" And often cut new pepper up and add 
Cardamums fresh from Media." 

And Ophelian: 

"Pepper from Libya take." . . . 



PUNGENT AND AROMATIC CONDIMENTS 247 

Again Fliieckiger and Hanbury say that pepper, 
during the middle ages, was the most esteemed and im- 
portant of all spices, and the very symbol of the spice 
trade, to which Venice, Genoa, and the commercial 
cities of Central Europe were indebted for a large 
part of their wealth; and its importance as a means 
of promoting commercial activity during those ages, 
and the civilising intercourse of nation with nation 
can scarcely be overrated. Tribute was levied in 
pepper and donations were made of this spice, which 
was often used as a medium of exchange when money 
was scarce. In 408 A. D. Alaric, the Goth, demanded 
as ransom from the city of Rome, among other things, 
five thousand pounds of gold, thirty thousand pounds 
of silver, and three thousand pounds of pepper. In 
France, says Larousse, during the middle ages, it was 
permitted to pay in pepper the cost of law suits, 
imposts, and feudal rights, and when payments were 
so made they were called spice payments, which were 
regarded as equivalent to payments in metallic coins, 
so that the locution has remained in the language, 
i. e. to pay in spices (esp&ces) signifies to pay in 
coin. Hence the present locution (in English) specie 
payments. 

' In the middle ages, says Fulano, landlords exacted 
from their tenants a pound or more of pepper at 
stated intervals. These tributes were known as pep- 
per-rents. The custom of adding to the regular 
rental of certain lands a given quantity of pepper or 
wheat still prevails, as shown in old leases which con- 



248 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

tinue in force, both in England and in our own country. 
In England the pepper trade began as early as the 
tenth century, and both there and in France the 
traders, called poivriers, pepperers, formed companies 
or guilds as did the vinaigriers and moutardiers. For 
several centuries pepper brought such high prices 
that it gave rise to the saying "dear as pepper"; and 
it was long after the successful voyage (1498) of 
Vasco da Gama, via the Cape of Good Hope, that the 
price of this commodity sensibly fell. Even then it 
was heavily taxed in England as it was also during the 
seventeenth century, when the impost was five shil- 
lings per pound and this duty was not materially 
lessened until the beginning of the nineteenth century, 
when it was two shillings and six pence per pound. 

The pungency of pepper is due to the contained 
resinous substance, and its aroma to an essential 
oil. Another constituent of pepper is piperin which 
may be resolved into piperic acid and piperidin; the 
pericarp yielding a fatty oil. 

White pepper is prepared from black pepper by 
the removal of its pericarp, which lessens its pun- 
gency. 

The long-pepper shrub, although indigenous to 
Celebes, the Philippines, Malabar, etc., is cultivated 
along the Western as well as the Eastern coast of 
India. This species of pepper "consists of a multi- 
tude of minute baccate fruits closely packed around 
a common axis, the whole forming a spike one inch 
and a half long and a quarter of an inch thick. The 



PUNGENT AND AROMATIC CONDIMENTS 249 

spike is supported by a stalk half an inch long; it 
is rounded above and below and tapers slightly toward 
its upper end. The fruits are ovoid, one tenth of an 
inch long . . . and arranged spirally with a 
small peltate bract beneath each. . . . The long 
pepper of the shops is grayish white, and appears as 
if it had been rolled in some earthy powder. When 
washed the spikes acquire their proper color, a deep 
reddish brown. . . . Long pepper has a burning, 
aromatic taste, and an agreeable but not powerful 
odor." It was used as a condiment in the remotest 
times, and later as a medicinal agent. 

(6) The fruit of certain members of the solanaccce are 
called peppers owing to their marked pungency; 
capsicum, whose seeds of acrid, biting taste are en- 
closed in pods, being the generic name. This genus 
is represented by many species and varieties of red, 
green and yellow peppers, in this country, in Mexico 
and the West Indies, in Central and South America, 
and in Africa. The fruit is called a berry despite the 
hollow interior of some of the large cultivated pep- 
pers. Capsicum, commonly known as cayenne pep- 
per, does not appear to have been known anciently; * 
indeed, none of its species were brought into general 
use until long after the discovery of America. They 

* Theophrastus (4th Century B.C.) in his History of Plants, 
says: . . . " Pepper indeed is a fruit, and there are two kinds 
of it; the one is round, like a vetch, having a husk, and is rather 
red in color; but the other is oblong, black, and full of seeds like 
poppy seeds. But this kind is much stronger than the other" 
(Athenaeus). He recommends this kind as an antidote against 
hemlock. 



250 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

are called peppers from their peppery properties, and 
not because they bear any resemblance structurally 
to the Eastern peppers. Individuals of several 
species of capsicum are those particular peppers of 
which the prudent, plodding, patient, persevering 
pertinaceous, and persistent Peter Piper had provi- 
dently picked a peck for pickling. 

Capsicum in Caribbean and South American primi- 
tive tongues, is quio, ouriagon, boimin, bohemoin, aty, 
or arymucha; in Spanish, chili or pimiento de Indias; 
in Portuguese, pimentao; in Italian, peberone; in 
French, piment; in German, Spanischer pfeffer; in 
Dutch, Spaansche peper; in Norwegian and Danish, 
Spansk peber; in Swedish, Spansk peppar; in modern 
Persian, estiot; in Armenian, kurmyt bibar; and in 
Turkish, kermezy bibar. 

One who at an evening entertainment, has promised 
to treat of the delightful pungent condiment known 
vulgarly as horse-radish, wrote, at the last moment, 
that he could not be present at that refection of mind 
and body, begged that some guest would take up the 
subject for him. The following, in brief, is the sub- 
stance of what he would have been sure to say. 

Horse-radish, that perennial member of the cruci- 
ferse family with stout tapering root one inch in mean 
thickness and three feet in length, long stalked, 
coarse, large, and oblong leaves and erect flowering 
racemes of the height of from two to three feet, has 
nothing in common with equus except its great 
strength which, however, is manifested not kineto- 



PUNGENT AND AEOMATIC CONDIMENTS 251 

dynamically but gustatorily. This strength was long 
ago realised by our Gallic brethren who called the 
root raifort a contraction of racine forte, radix fortis; 
they afterward called the plant cran de Bretagne. 
The Germans named it meerrettig; the Russians chren; 
the Lithuanians, krenai; and the Illyrians, kren. It 
is known botanically as Cochlearia Armoracia (Linn), 
radix armoracice. According to Flueckiger it cannot 
be identified with the wild radish, raphanis agria, 
of the Greeks. That author and Baillon cite Pliny as 
saying that the name armon was used in the Pontic 
regions to designate the armoracia of the Romans, 
This plant (c. armoracia) says A. de Candolle, is 
native of Western Asia and Eastern Europe. It has 
long been cultivated throughout the temperate 
regions of Western Europe and this country. 

Ever since the sixteenth century, says Gerarde, 
quoted by Flueckiger, the Germans have used horse- 
radish sliced thin or grated and mixed with vinegar 
for fish and other sauces, as mustard is now used, 
hence its old popular French name moutarde des 
Allemands. A century later it began to be used as a 
condiment by the English. The well known sauce 
Russe, eaten with roasted meat, is a sort of horse- 
radish puree. The leaves of the plant have also been 
used as food and condiment. In India the root of the 
moringa pterygosperma is used as a substitute for 
horse-radish. In France, the water cress, nasturce 
amphibie, is commonly known as raifort d'eau. 

Freshly grated horse-radish owes its pungency and 



252 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

savor to the contained volatile oil which is said to be 
chemically identical with that of black mustard. 

In all well-regulated establishments, it is to the 
under-cook that is ordinarily assigned the painful 
toil of grating in a day the week's allowance of do- 
mestic horse-radish, and she is excused from all other 
duties for, at least, twenty-four hours thereafter, 
during which she is the exclusive family weeper, as 
the children are then forbidden admission to the 
scullery for obvious reasons. 

Another absent guest, who was appointed to open 
the discussion of the sinapic question, wrote that he 
was suffering from the effect of a mustard plaster at 
the pit of the stomach and wished all to know that 
this delightful substance is infinitely more enjoyable 
as a condiment than as a blistering medicinal agent. 
The short note given below is an abstract of what 
the absentee, whose better health was drunk with 
pleasure, would have been likely to say. 

Mustard, brassica or sinapis (Linn) a genus of the 
order cruciferce, to which cabbage heads belong, has 
four species that are used as condiments, viz. : sinapis 
nigra, sinapis juncea, sinapis alba, and sinapis eru- 
coides (L.). This annual herb is found in a wild state 
throughout Europe, except in the extreme north, in 
Northern Africa, in Asia Minor, in the Caucasus, in 
Southern Siberia, and in China; and is now cultivated 
in all those regions as well as in North and South 
America. 



PUNGENT AND AK0MATIC CONDIMENTS 253 

Sinapis nigra seeds are so often likened to the 
planets not because they are spherical or slightly oval, 
about one twenty-fifth of an inch in mean diameter 
and one-fiftieth of a grain in weight, but because in 
nature there is neither great nor small. All astrono- 
mers and epicists are agreed that when powdered 
(the seeds, not the planets) they become greenish 
yellow, and that when mixed with water, the emulsion 
is yellowish, emits a pungent, acrid vapor from the 
contained volatile oil which irritates the eyes, and 
has a strong acid reaction. These close observers 
of the phenomena of nature and men further agree 
that this pungency is not perceptible in the dry 
powder. Gastronomers never use ground black 
mustard seeds pure but always mixed with white 
mustard, under the name of flour of mustard. 

The sinapis juncea says a Polish professor whose 
name is pronounceable only by snuffing a pinch of 
rape made of this same sinapis, is largely cultivated 
in India, Central Africa, Southern Russia, and other 
warm regions where it takes the place of sinapis 
nigra. Great quantities of the seed are sent to Eng- 
land and France. 

Sinapis alba seeds, says a flavian oriental pandit, 
are yellowish, about one-twelfth of an inch in diam- 
eter and one-tenth of a grain in weight. When pow- 
dered and mixed with water, the emulsion is yellow- 
ish, is inodorous as it does not yield any volatile oil, 
but has a very pungent taste. 

Sinapis erucoides is grown in Southern Europe 



254 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

(Fliieckiger) and has about the same properties as 
black mustard. 

Mustard is mentioned by Theophrastus as napy, 
and by Dioscorides as sinepi. The pulverized seeds 
were frequently employed by the Greeks and Romans 
to season food. In Gaul, during the fourth century, 
powdered mustard seeds were prepared with honey, 
olive oil and vinegar as a sauce. During the thir- 
teenth century, the sauciers-vinaigriers had the sole 
right in France to prepare and sell mustard. In that 
time, every day at dinner hour, these sauciers ran 
about the streets of Paris crying : sauce a la moutarde, 
sauce a Vail, sauce a la ciboule, sauce au verjus, sauce 
h la ravigote, etc. These modes of seasoning aliments 
increased rapidly in popularity and fashion, even 
among the wealthy classes. Whenever Louis XI 
dined out he brought with him his pot of mustard. 

Dijon was the great mustard centre of France, 
where the best was prepared for table use, and became 
famous in the land of Gaul. Certain Burgundians 
ventured to assert that the word moutarde came from 
the motto of the Dukes of Burgundy which was 
Moult Tarde. A facetious etymonist, however, sug- 
gested that the motto did probably come from mou- 
tarde. Another farceur gives to moutarde a celtic 
origin, and says that the word in Cymric signifies 
an object which emits a strong odor. A third word- 
baiting wight sets forth his claim for a Latin etymon, 
multum, much, and ardere, to burn. 

In the middle ages and long afterward, during 



PUNGENT AND AROMATIC CONDIMENTS 255 

winter months, the people of Western Europe fed 
largely* on salted meat and made constant use of 
mustard to render this food relishable. The following 
verse from LeDuc's "Proverbs en Rime" (1665) may 
serve to show the high appreciation of this condiment 
by the hungry: 

" De quatre choses prens toy bien garde; 
De valet qui se regarde, 
De femme ou fille qui se farde, 
De boeuf sale sans moutarde, 
D'un pauvre disne qui trop tarde." 

Another author expresses the same idea as follows : 

"De trois choses Dieu nous garde; 
Du bceuf sale sans moutarde, 
D'un valet qui se regarde, 
D'une femme qui se farde." 

It is needless now to go into particulars respecting 
the many methods of preparation of this well known 
condiment which is now used much more extensively 
than ever before, and it will perhaps be "quite as 
instructive and a little more entertaining" * to set 
forth some of the old sinapic adages by way of increas- 
ing our crop of chestnuts, as : 

"Sweeten thy mustard"; which is another mode 
of saying, be less caustic, let not thy angry passions 
rise, moderate thine expressions of disapproval, etc., 
or as Regnier puts it : 

"Cependant il vaut mieux sucrer notre moutarde, 
L'homme pour un caprice est sot qui se hasarde." 

* A favorite locution of a dear old teacher. 



256 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

"Shrewd as mustard." 

"This is mustard after dinner"; i. e. something 
of no use since it has come too late. 

"La moutarde lui monte au nez." 

"The mustard is rising to his nostrils"; i. e. his 
anger is beginning to manifest itself. 

" Le moutardier du Pape." "The pope's chief mus- 
tardist." This adage has long been used to designate 
any pretentious individual "whose mental calibre is 
not so great as to enable him to comprehend the 
necessity of getting under shelter when the waters of 
the firmament do descend to moisten the parched 
earth." The saying arose from the fact that the Avig- 
nonese Pope John the XXII (1316-34), who was 
extremely fond of mustard, had created for one of 
his nephews, the office of Chief Mustardist to His 
Holiness; nepotism in high fife being then much 
more common than it is at the present time. 

" Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience 
well: that same cowardly, giant -like ox -beef hath 
devoured many a gentleman of your house : I promise 
you your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now." 
Midsummer Night's Dream. A. 3, S. 1. 

"He a good wit? hang him, baboon! his wit's as 
thick as Tewsbury mustard . . ." Henry IV, 
Second Part, A. 2, S. 4. 

"What say you to a piece of beef and mustard? 
A dish that I do love to feed upon, 
Ay, but the mustard is too hot a little. 
Why, then the beef, and let the mustard rest. 



PUNGENT AND AEOMATIC CONDIMENTS 257 

Nay, then I will not: you shall have the mustard, 
Or else you get no beef of Grumio. 
Then both, or one, or anything thou wilt. 
Why then, the mustard without the beef." 

— The Taming of the Shrew, A. 4, S. 3. 

A third absent guest, learned in the ways of the 
heathen, and on the eve of sailing to the Philippines, 
wrote that he felt sure someone would speak, in his 
place, on the composite oriental condiment known as 
curry-powder, and appealed to the host to do so. 
Hence the brief sketch that is to follow, of what our 
dear absentee might, could, would, or should have 
said, in his usual honeyed tones, on this very inter- 
esting subject. 

Curry, be it known to all mankind, has nothing 
whatsoever to do with currying favor, dressing 
leather, or grooming a horse, although the flesh of 
that animal may be eaten with curry powder as the 
main ingredient of the sauce which, in India, bears 
the name of kari, karri, koora, or salin, and which is 
used in seasoning fish, fowl, red herring and other 
meats, and fruit, rice, and other vegetables. 

Two hundred years before the Portuguese had 
appeared in the Indian seas, says Balfour, Ibn Batuta 
spoke of the natives of Ceylon as eating curry, which, 
in Arabic, he calls conchan. In modern Arabic idaan 
is the name. ... In Persia it is known as 
Nan-khurish. 

"The ingredients of curry powder are usually 
brought from market daily to Hindoo families, but 



258 



DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 



European residents often grind and keep the dry- 
materials in powder." Almost every household has 
its own formula for curry powder; one of these con- 
sists of: 

Cumin seeds 
Fanugreek . 
Mustard seed 
Dried chilies 
Dried ginger 
Black pepper 
Poppy seeds 
Garlic 
Cardamoms 
Cinnamon . 
Turmeric 
Coriander seeds 

Another formula consists of; 



Cayenne pepper . 

Coriander seeds 

Cumin 

Dried cassia leaves 

Powdered turmeric 



1 
1 


part by weight 


1 


a 


" 


1 


it 


tt 


2 


tt 


tt 


2 


" 


tt 


2 


It 


it 


2 


tt 


tt 


2 


it 


tt 


2 


tt 


tt 


4 


tt 


tt 


20 


tt 


tt 


8 parts by 
12 


weight 

« 


12 


tt 


a 


12 

99 


tt 


it 



Among other materials used in different curries in 
various proportions, according to taste are : anis seed, 
allspice, cloves, mace, nutmeg, onions, long pepper, 
asafcetida, chironjie nut, almond, cocoanut, ghi, butter 
salt, tamarind, lime-juice, mango, etc. No curry 
seems complete without turmeric and the quantity 
used is very variable. Cocoanut milk, as well as the 
oil freshly expressed from the grated nut, is much 
used in forming the gravy to many curries, especially 
fish and prawn curries. 

Before undertaking to enlighten the whole gastro- 
nomic world on all that relates directly or indirectly 



PUNGENT AND AROMATIC CONDIMENTS 259 

to certain aromatic condiments, the hope must be 
expressed that the learned minority may accept the 
view of Talwer Tasek,* sahib, on the derivation of 
the adjective aromatic which, he says, is from the 
Latin substantive aroma, from the Greek aroma, a 
spice, a sweet herb. 

To the ancient right worshipful ancient order of 
the Sour Juice all the pungent condiments became 
known, except capsicum and those extraordinary 
curry powders of the far east. Of the aromatic, the 
pre-historic botanists discovered only chives, leeks, 
onions, shallots, garlic, asafcetida, mushrooms, and 
truffles. The rest, such as members of the zingi- 
beracese, of the umbelliferse, of the composite, of the 
myristicese, of the lauracese, of the canellacese, of the 
myrtacese, of the iridacese, of the labiatse, and of the 
orchidacese, were discovered by modern deipnophilic 
botanists of divers nations. Many of the condiments 
classed as aromatic are more or less pungent, but 
they are so grouped because the aromatic principle 
predominates just as the piquant is the dominant 
element in the pungent condiments which are more 
or less aromatic. 

At the mensual assemblies of the Sour Juice Club — 
the records of whose jolly sessions are graven in the 
imaginative minds of all poetical paleontists — the 
members, regardless of breath, revelled in raw onions 
and doted upon onion soup and their newly invented 
delicious amlarasan onion puree — for broiled chops, 

* Anagram of Walter Skeat. 



260 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

the best of all sauces — the receipt for which a Gallic 
princess adopted without duly crediting it to her trog- 
loditic ancestors, as is the wont of copyists now-a-days 
and even consented that it be named after herself — 
sauce Soubise. The philoneopolytheistic Egyptians 
of the early dynasties found the onion to be so fra- 
grant, savory, and wholesome, and such an efficient 
stimulant of the emotions and of the lachrymal glands 
that they sanctified and even worshipped the plant; 
but alas! in our materialistic days, this holy root is 
too often sacrilegiously defiled by being eaten un- 
cooked, generally far away from home and from polite 
society by the wicked, by rusticating idlers, and by 
confirmed misogamistic bachelors to prevent them 
from brooding over their forlorn social condition. 

Martial says anent leeks: "Whenever you have 
eaten strong smelling shreds of the Tarentine leek, 
give kisses with your mouth shut." Which Wright 
does into English verse: 

"When you Tarentine leeks eat, shun offence, 
With lips close seal'd a breathless kiss dispence." 

And which Swift expands in his wonted happy style : 

"For it is every cook's opinion, 
No savory dish without an onion. 
And, lest your kissing should be spoil'd, 
Your onions must be thoroughly boil'd: 

Or else you may spare 

Your mistress a share, 
The secret will never be known; 

She cannot discover 

The breath of a lover, 
But thinks it as sweet as her own." 



PUNGENT AND AROMATIC CONDIMENTS 261 

In Spain the onion is greedily devoured by hungry 
impecunious Dons under the euphonious cognomen 
of gazpacho, which consists of a portion of adamantine 
black-bread, soaked in water, with superposed slices 
of the tasty cebolla sprinkled with salt, vinegar, and 
oil, and which is the least costly meal obtainable in 
any rural venta. When in happy possession of a 
real or two, the ragged Hidalgo, with grave ceremony, 
much circumstance, pompous formalism, and turgid 
ostentation, arrogantly orders that a slice of tomato 
be added to the gazpacho * as a great and rarely 
enjoyed luxury. The bodies and vestments of the 
lower classes of meridional Europeans are generally 
perfumed to saturation with the "delightful" shallot 
which, in odor and savor, is a cross between onion and 
garlic; and the common people of southernmost 
France take no meal into which the pungent aromatic 
garlic does not enter. An oily emulsion of garlic 
(ayoli) was and probably is still used in the south of 
France by students as a sauce for the viands consumed 
at their carousals; its concoction demanding many 
hours of continuous labor. The student who has 
made the emulsion is forced to retire to bed on account 
of the intoxication and conjunctival irritation pro- 
duced by the garlicky fumes. The judiciously mod- 
erate use of these condiments in salads and in cooked 

* The modern gazpacho is more elaborate than that of the 
time of La Mancha's knight, and the bread, of better quality, 
requires no soaking; besides the onion, oil, vinegar, and salt, 
there are in the modern gazpacho garlic, sliced white potatoes, 
tomatoes, and boiled garbanzos (chick peas). 



262 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

dishes gives them a zest which immensely gratifies 
the cultivated palate of the good-liver. Were the 
onion and its allied condiments to pass away, all true 
gastronomes would surely wish to shun the sterile 
earth for a paradise in which these luxurious herbs 
flourish in plenty! * 

Asafcetida was not known under its present name 
until the tenth century, but a substance called laser, 
having, at least, similar properties, was employed as a 
condiment in very remote times by the Persians, 
Greeks, and Romans, and surely ages before these 
modern nations by the trogloditic amlarasans. Laser, 
gathered in India and Persia, was one of the commodi- 
ties taxed by the Romans at Alexandria in the second 
century. Laserpitium is among the substances enu- 
merated for the famous composite fricassee in Aris- 
tophanes' Ecclesiazusce. To this day asafoetida enters 
into some of the dainty sauces prepared by culinary 
artists. The best tears of asafcetida are said to come 
from Laristan, Persia. It is gathered also in some 
regions of Baluchistan and of Afganistan, near the 
head-waters of the Oxus, and in other parts of the 
Eastern hemisphere. 

Of mushrooms and truffles little need now be said, 
since their condimental properties are already well 
known to all who have so often enjoyed the aroma 
of one in the filet aux champignons, of the other in the 

* A very tasty sauce, called mignonette, has lately been served 
as condiment to raw oysters in some clubs and in French res- 
taurants, and consists chiefly of finely chopped shallots, coarsely 
ground black pepper, salt, and white-wine vinegar. 



PUNGENT AND AROMATIC CONDIMENTS 263 

luxurious truffled turkey and the rich Strasbourg pie, 
and of both in many delicious sauces. . . . 

In ancient times the title of spice merchants con- 
ferred greater honor than that of the modern epicier 
who vends groceries in addition to his aromatic wares. 
Spices and aromatics were so highly prized as con- 
diments and as perfumes for unguents, that their 
names were much used in figurative language. One 
of the most precious gifts of the Queen of Sheba to 
Solomon consisted of choice spices. In his song, 4—14, 
the king uses allegorically " Spikenard and saffron; 
calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense ; 
myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices." 

Shakspeare uses spicery, spice and spices meta- 
phoricly as follows: 

"Where in that nest of spicery, they shall breed selves of 
themselves, to your recomforture." 

— Richard III, 4, 4. 

. . . "And so would you, 
For all this spice in your hypocrisy." 

—King Henry VIII, 2, 3. 

" Even with the same austerity and garb 
As he controll'd the war; but one of these — 
As he hath spices of them all, not all, 
For I dare so far free him — made him fear'd." 
— Coriolanus, 4, 7. 

. . . O, think what they have done 
And then run mad indeed, stark mad! for all 
Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it." 
— The Winter's Tale, 3, 2. 



XVIII 

OF SWEET CONDIMENTS 

"Pleasant words are as an honey-comb, 
Sweet to the soul, and health to the bones." 

True lovers of sweets know well that from the re- 
motest times of the evolution of thick-skinned hirsute 
mammalian beasts, bruin was wont to make periodical 
burglarious visitations to the hives of the bees; that 
long thereafter anthropoid creatures acquired a very 
decided taste for sweets; that the nut-fed tree-men — 
those predecessors of the flesh-eating cave-dwellers 
— diurnally enjoyed their delicious dessert of sweet 
fruits from some of which they obtained an abundance 
of juice to dulcify their favorite beverage, the rich 
cocoanut milk; that they soon formed a sweet juice 
or svadurasa club, whose main object was the dis- 
covery of new species of savory fruits; that this 
name svadurasa, handed down traditionally to the 
cave-men, had suggested to them the opposite title 
amlarasa or sour juice for their neoterical gastronomic 
association; that a period of great length had elapsed 
before the tree-man learned from his pachydermatous 
trichotic cousin the value of honey by watching his 
frequent combats with swarming insects; that bruno 
has never lost any opportunity to gratify his ardent 

264 



SWEET CONDIMENTS 265 

taste and insatiable appetite for the luscious honey- 
comb, although the less protected parts of his articous 
economy have been so sorely exposed to the stinging 
darts of his buzzing, active, pugnacious and piquant 
little winged foes; that the cunning, crafty, arboreal 
resident having often witnessed the after-effects of 
the fracas upon the ursine snout, and sometimes 
realised them on his own person, sought safety for 
his nasal excressence by first smoking out the occu- 
pants of the hive and leisurely gathering the product 
of the industrious swarm's labor (such being the 
origin of the virtue of tobacco smoking, of the craft 
of smoking beef, and of the hazy trick of smoking 
tutors and freshmen); that the discovery of the bee 
and of its honey is clearly and unquestionably 
ursinous; and that its use by the tree-men, who in- 
vented hydromel as well as galactomel, and by the 
cave-dwellers who exploited oxymel, was, without 
the least shadow of a doubt, post-ursine: the lofty 
sense of justice and the rising mental temperature of 
the meliphilist will very properly impel him to protest 
vehemently against the dicta of those arrogant Greeks 
who ascribe to Aristeus, King of Arcadia, the dis- 
covery of the bee and the invention of the domestic 
hive and of apiculture, and who furthermore, with 
equally intolerable assurance and boldness do dare as- 
sert that Gorgoris, chief of a Spanish clan (1520 B. C), 
had taught his people the use of honey as a condiment, 
an aliment, and a medicament before it was known 
to beast or man; and he will surely decry this outra- 



266 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

geous theft worthy of the free application of the 
many-tailed literary cat to the shameless plagiaries ! ! !* 
The word honey seems to have been introduced into 
the language for no better reason than that it came 
from the Anglo-Saxon hunig and the old Saxon 
honeg. However, a learned facetious etymonist sug- 
gests that it may have come from the Huns who, 
twenty-five hundred years ago, were named hiong-nu 
by the Chinese, and ounnoi by the Greeks. It is 
nevertheless certain that the thick, viscid, syrupy, 
fragrant, sweet, delicious, amber-colored substance 
was named meli by the Greeks; met by the Latins; 
miel by the French and Spanish; and miele by the 
Italians; who all agree that it is prepared by some 
insects, principally by bees and by certain sedentary 
tropical ants whose crops become thereby enormously 
distended — to nearly three centimeters — through the 
intervention of their feeders, the working ants; the 
honey stuffed ants being in turn the feeders of their 
colony in time of need. These ants are served as 
dessert at the tables of tropical epicures, who burst 
the crop and eat the honey with great gusto. The 
bees magazine their honey into hexagonal waxy 
alveoli, which they build for protection in hollow 
trees and sometimes even in the carcasses of animals; 
this circumstance having led casual observers to 
regard putrefaction as necessary to the generation of 

* This sentence of four hundred and fifty-eight words is here 
used to exemplify one of the kinds of verbosity to be avoided 
by young writers. 



SWEET CONDIMENTS 267 

bees and other insects. Samson's prospective honey- 
moon was nipped in the bud probably on account 
of his having received much more injury from the 
bees, which had built their store-house in the body 
of the dead lion, than from the lion himself during the 
far-famed wrestling match, and he bore such marks 
of their stings, when he returned with the sweet 
offering to claim his intended bride, as to be rendered 
repulsive to her who showed good taste rather than 
good faith by rejecting him and accepting another 
lover with a clearer skin but less strength and courage. 
Strange as it may seem, the next connubial venture 
of the muscular hero was not happier than the first. 
Anciently regarded as a secretion of animal matter, 
honey has long since been proved to be an elaboration 
of the fluid sucked from the nectaries of divers flowers 
into their crops by the working bees and deposited 
into numberless waxy alveoli for safe keeping as 
winter food; these thrifty laborers also gathering 
pollen which they likewise store for the sustenance 
of the fifty thousand of the queen bee's larvse. It is 
clear that this honey does not exist as such in the 
nectar of flowers but that it acquires its viscidity, 
probably by admixture of a mucoid substance se- 
creted in the insect's crop, and that it owes its con- 
sistency to loss by the ingested nectar of much of its 
seventy per cent, of water, while it retains the greater 
part, if not all of its thirteen per cent, of crystallisable 
sugar and of its ten per cent, of uncrystallisable sugar; 
these proportions of sugar varying in the nectar of 



268 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

different flowers which impart to the honey their 
peculiar flavor and properties, some kinds of honey 
being poisonous to man.* 

A dissertation on honey bees would here be out of 
place, but a few words may be said in favor of these 
precious insects which not only carry pollen from 
flower to flower for the good of husbandry, but supply 
man with a delicious sweet of their own confection, 
and with a superior wax that is so valuable in the arts. 
It is well known that rightly trained domesticated 
bees never do injury to a kind master who properly 
cares for them, while they repel vigorously the ap- 
proach of strangers. This may be illustrated by the 
following verses extracted from Watkins' translation 
of Busch's "Buzz a Buzz, or the Bees," which is as 

* The Mount Hymettus honey, so highly esteemed anciently, 
owed its excellence to the character of the food the bees obtained 
from the great profusion of flowers covering the mountain and 
valleys in that region of Attica. 

The chemist Dumas and also Hubert and Milne Edwards 
ascertained by experiment that bees fed exclusively on cane- 
sugar produced not only honey but wax. Some apiculturists 
in this country feed their bees on sugar-house refuse, or molasses, 
or unrefined cane-sugar, but the honey of these bees, though of 
good appearance, is inferior in taste; it lacks the agreeable odor 
and flavor of the honey from clover-fed bees. 

Professor Youmans in his Hand Book of Household Science 
says of honey: "That from clover, or from highly fragrant 
flowers, is far superior to that from buckwheat; spring made 
honey is better than that produced in autumn. Virgin honey 
or that made from bees that? never swarmed, is finer than that 
yielded by older swarms; and while some regions are renowned 
for the exquisite and unrivalled flavor of their honeys, that made 
in some other places is actually poisonous. We can hardly 
suppose honey to be a simple vegetable liquid. It probably 
undergoes some change in the body of the insect by the action 
of the juices of the mouth and crop, as when bees are fed upon 
common sugar alone they produce honey." 



SWEET CONDIMENTS 269 

amusing to us all as the book with its comical pictures 
is ever entertaining to children of lesser growth : 

"The bee is ever a delight, 
As round about he wings his flight; 
Of great renown, too, is the bee — 
In heathendom especially 
Witness Virgilius, if you please, 
A Roman poet — great on bees; 
For when the famous Roman Legion 
Which, as you know, sacked every region, 
At length came down on his Penates, 
Who shielded Virgil like his bees? 
Peacefully smiles Virgilius, compassed 

by sweet buzzing honey-bees; 
Broken, the bearded brave warmen take 

flight in the wildest confusion!" 

Both the Greeks and Romans used honey in the 
greatest profusion as condiment and aliment; in 
their cheese cakes, with gruel or bread, and to sweeten 
their wines which they generally drank hot. In the 
Iliad, 11-628, when the wounded Eurypolos is con- 
veyed from the battle field by Nestor, the bearers 
and royal warriors are regaled by the fair-haired 
Hekamede who placed upon a table a bronze basket 
containing thirst-promoting onions, yellow honey, 
and sacred flour . . . also a mighty chalice 
into which she poured Pramnian wine, and with 
bronze grater she grated in goat-cheese and then 
strewed thereon white flour. In the Odyssey, 10-234, 
Kirke (Circe) to regale her guests, mixes cheese, 
flour, and yellow honey with Pramnian wine, and adds 
to the food certain philters to make them forget 



270 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

home and friends. These Greeks and Romans and 
their successors for many centuries made the freest 
use of oxymel and hydromel, so often prescribed in 
acute diseases by Hippocrates. Even at the present 
time some nations use the mixture of honey and 
water as a common beverage; notably the Russians 
and Poles who call it mead when it has undergone 
alcoholic fermentation, and the Welsh, by whom it is 
styled metheglin. It is said that for a long time the 
Poles made more than fifty different kinds of mead, 
some of which were very strong in alcohol and there- 
fore highly intoxicating. 

The word sugar, as well as the sweet substance 
which bears that name, all know to be of oriental 
nativity, since in all western languages it is traceable 
to the same root. From the Sanskrit sharkara the 
Greeks coined saccharon which was brought to them 
by the followers of Alexander, and from the Greek 
the Latins made up saccharum. The Persian name, 
however, still from this same root, is cheker, and the 
Arabic shakar or soukker, from which the Spanish ob- 
tained azucar, the Italians, zucchero, the Germans, 
zucker, and the French, sucre. 

Flavius Arrianus (100 A. D.) in an account of his 
voyage along the Red Sea, speaks of cane sugar, 
which he called reed-honey and says that it was also 
named sacchari. From the writings of this author, 
and later from those of Galen, it is clear that then the 
sugar cane was cultivated, and sugar extracted there- 



SWEET CONDIMENTS 271 

from, in Arabia Felix as well as in India. Long, how- 
ever, before the time of Arrian, the sugar cane or 
sweet reed was known throughout south western 
Asia as is shown from the following: ". . . and 
of sweet calamus two hundred and fifty shekels." 
Exodus, XXX, 23. "To what purpose cometh to 
me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a 
far country. . . ." Jeremiah VI, 20. 

Moses of Korni, an Armenian author of the fifth 
century, speaks of the extraction of sugar from the 
cane by boiling, and is regarded as the first writer to 
note the fact by the English commentator of the works 
of Paul of Aegina. But this sugar was not generally 
known in Europe until the thirteenth century, 
although the Moors, in Spain, early cultivated the 
sugar cane as an exotic plant whose juice they used 
as a medicament, and although at the close of the 
eleventh century the followers of Godfrey, the cru- 
sader — called Bouillon * because he was "un guerrier 

* " GODFREY DE BOUILLON 

"To the Editor of the New York Times: 

"'J. P,'s' amusing effort in last week's Saturday Review to 
trace the etymology of the suffix 'M. Bouillon,' carried by God- 
frey the Crusader, has reminded me of the French explorations 
for the same. I learned it in a couplet at school with some other 
points of Godfrey's history, none of which is, I regret to say, so 
well remembered as 

' Godfroi de Bouillon's ainsi nomm<j, 
Parcequ'il 6tait Capitaine le plus consomme.' 

" I quote from memory, for I do not recall ever to have seen 
this sidelight to history in print. It is doubtless unnecessary 
for me to add that as bouillon means broth, consomme is the best, 
most perfect, highly flavored and finished variety of bouillon 
that a chef can prepare. C. M. 

"New York, Dec. 2, 1898." 



272 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

consomme" — knew the properties of sugar which they 
had used in Syria, but failed to carry back home 
specimens of the cane or of its product. 

From what precedes, it is evident that the fruit 
sugars were used many ages before the reed sugar; 
and it is positive that the main property of these 
fruit sugars, known anciently, was that of wine mak- 
ing or what is now called alcoholic fermentation. 

In Guy Patin's one hundred and fifty-eighth letter 
dated May 27th, 1667,* the following occurs anent 
sugar: "J'entretins hier au soir Monsieur le Premier 
President, qui m'y avait invite par Lettre. II me 
demanda si les Anciens avaient connu le sucre. Je 
lui dis qu'oui: que Theophraste en a parle dans son 
Fragment du miel, ou il en fait trois sortes : Tune qui 
est des fleurs, et c'est le miel commun: F autre de 
Fair, qui est la manne des Arabes; et la troisieme des 
roseaux en tois kalamois, qui est le sucre. Pline Fa 
connu aussi et en pake sous le nom de sel des Indes. 
Galien et Dioscoride Font nomme sacchar, et c'etait 
en ce tems-la une chose bien rare." 

An erroneous notion prevails, even among intelli- 
gent people, that sugar is harmful; whereas it is a 
necessity, and it is only its excessive use, like that of 
all other good things, which does mischief. Children 
who are forbidden to eat sweets by too strict and un- 
discerning parents, have been known to take them 
by stealth in excess and to be much harmed thereby. 

* Lettres Choisies de Feu Mr. Guy Patiii. Seconde Edition, 
1688. 



SWEET CONDIMENTS 273 

The very great physical exertion made by the young 
under ten years of age demands the ingestion of a 
sufficient amount of carbo-hydrates which are bene- 
ficial in other respects, while more than a sufficiency 
must necessarily be injurious. The simpler the sweet 
aliment or condiment, the better for the health of 
children or adults. The following excerpt from an 
English paper shows how highly sugar is estimated 
on the easterly side of the salty pond. This castanish 
production was taken from a German publication 
that obtained the information from the Dutch, who 
gleaned it from Java and Sumatra planters, who had 
long observed the good effects of sugar on man and 
beast, etc., etc. 

"the virtues of sugar. 

" From the London News. 

"Children all over the world, and all the keepers of 
'Sweet-stuff' shops, ought to join in a testimonial to 
the learned, though anonymous, scientist who pub- 
lishes in the Allgemeine Zeitung an enthusiastic glori- 
fication of sugar. Not only as a genussmittel, but 
much more as a nahrungsmittel, sugar is almost the 
most valuable thing which enters the mouth of man, 
woman, or child. There is scarcely any other equally 
important feeder of muscle power. The laborer can 
do nothing better than keep a few lumps of sugar in his 
pocket. The negroes in sugar plantations renew and 
quicken their weary bodies by sucking the sugar canes. 



274 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Sugar is a fine restorative for soldiers. A Dutch 
army surgeon asserts that during an expedition in 
Sumatra he found that the best means to maintain 
the soldiers in vigor and freshness not only during 
the march, but during the fight, was a generous allow- 
ance of sugar. Each man was served with a handful 
at a time. The Swiss chamois hunters bear similar 
evidence to its marvelous powers of sustenance and 
of recuperation after exhausting fatigue. The writer 
gives an account of successful experiments made with 
sugar as food for athletes by several of the Dutch 
rowing clubs, by pedestrians, by cyclists, and others 
whose bodily powers need a rapid, portable, and in- 
nocent stimulant. Sugar is coming more and more 
into use in Holland in the course of training for con- 
tests, and it is as good for beasts as it is for men. 
The poor hardly realize as yet, or only realize uncon- 
sciously, what a treasure they possess in cheap sugar. 
Its value in fever has been emphasized by Hupeland 
and others. That which is supposed to injure the 
teeth in consumption of 'goodies' is not the sugar, 
but the so-called fruit acids which are introduced to 
flavor the sugar. Negroes, who devour sugar in so 
huge a quantity, have the best teeth in the world." 

Savages in tropical and temperate regions consume 
a great amount of sweet fruit, but not so those of 
bleak septentrional latitudes who live so largely on 
fats. Dr. Kane writes that he had repeatedly offered 
lumps of sugar to Eskimos, who invariably refused to 
eat the stuff. Among the Eskimos lately brought 



SWEET CONDIMENTS 275 

to this country was a girl, about twelve years of age, 
who could not be induced to eat pure sugar or candy, 
although she had learned to like the rest of our ordi- 
nary diet. In Europe sugar was at first used exclu- 
sively as a medicinal agent, and it was not until 
the sixteenth century that it was a recognised con- 
diment. 

A GLIMPSE OF THE CHEMISTRY OF SUGARS. 

It may be worth our while to make a brief inquiry 
into the nature of the two great classes of sugars, 
i. e. the vegetable and the synthetic prepared in such 
enormous quantities for domestic purposes and for 
use in the arts. 

The following notes, relating to twenty sorts of 
sugars derived from the vegetable kingdom, and of a 
few obtained by synthesis, are obligingly contributed 
by a friendly chemist of eminence, who says that sugars 
are usually classed with certain organic compounds 
containing carbon and a multiple of the molecule of 
water (H 2 0) called carbo-hydrates. He further says 
that this classification is no longer quite correct, since 
sugars have been found in which the numerical rela- 
tion of hydrogen and oxygen is not exactly two to 
one. Sugars are classified in various other ways. 
By the number of carbon atoms in the molecule, con- 
sidered in its simplest form, and then they are called : 

Tetroses, those that contain . . . . C 4 

Pentoses, " " . . . . C 5 

Hexoses, " " . . . C 6 

Heptoses, " " . C 7 



276 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

etc., Octoses, Nonoses, etc.; or, according to the 
number of groups of C 6 H 12 6 , which they represent, 
or from which they are derived. As all sugars cannot 
be brought under these categories, it will answer to 
arrange them in the four following groups : 

Group I. Monosaccharides, or glucoses in general 
(C 6 H 12 6 ). 

The term glycose or glucose at the present time is 
used both in a generic sense, to- designate this whole 
class, and also in the special sense of "grapesugar" 
(see below under No. 1). All glucoses reduce certain 
alkaline metallic solutions, such as those of copper, 
silver, mercury, bismuth, etc., and all of them polar- 
ise to the right. 

1. Glucose (in its special sense) is also called dex- 
trose, starch sugar. Its composition is C 6 H 12 6 . 
It occurs very commonly in the vegetable kingdom; 
in most fruits; in the spring sap of many trees, such 
as the birch and maple; in buds in young roots; in 
rhizomes, i. e. ginger, etc. ; in young tubers and shoots, 
as the first step in the act of rendering soluble the 
starch in the plant. It also occurs in many unripe 
fruits, and in the nectaries of many flowers, and in 
honey. Besides, it occurs in the animal kingdom; 
in all parts of the body of mammalia and birds, chiefly 
in the liver, chyle and blood. In most fruits and in 
many succulent parts of plants, there are present at 
different periods of growth or at maturity, more than 
one kind of sugar, the relative quantities of which 
may vary widely under different conditions. It is 



SWEET CONDIMENTS 277 

therefore impossible to assign to such fruits or to other 
parts of plants any definite proportion of a particular 
sugar or mixture of sugars. As regards honey, this 
is always composed of the particular kind or kinds of 
sugar extracted from the nectaries by the bees, who 
do not alter its nature or composition. It may 
therefore consist of widely varying quantities of the 
different natural sugars. If bees are fed exclusively 
on glucose, their honey will necessarily be pure 
glucose. 

2. Laevulose, or fruit sugar, C 6 H 12 6 , occurs widely 
in the vegetable kingdom, always alongside of glucose 
or of saccharose (cane sugar) or of both. With yeast, 
it ferments more slowly than glucose (No. 1) and 
polarizes to the left. When cane sugar is treated 
with a dilute acid at a gentle heat, it takes up one 
molecule of water C lz H 22 11 + H 2 0+C 12 H 24 12 , and 
this new compound then breaks up into two mole- 
cules of isomeric bodies, namely: C 6 H 12 6 — regular 
glucose (No. 1) polarizing to the right, andC 6 H 12 G ; 
laevulose, polarizing to the left. The power of left 
polarization of the latter is so much greater than the 
dextrogyre action of the glucose, that the product, 
which is called invert-sugar, shows a laevogyre rota- 
tion. 

3. Galactose or lactoglucose, C 6 H 12 6 , sometimes 
called lactose, which name, however, is very commonly 
applied to the natural product known as milk sugar, 
either as a chemical or a pharmacal term. Galactose 
does not occur in nature ready formed, but is pro- 



278 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

duced, alongside of glucose (No. 1) by warming milk 
sugar with a dilute acid. It is also obtainable from 
other sources. It polarizes to the right. 

4. Sorbose or sorbin, C 6 H 12 6 , is obtained by fer- 
menting the juice of the berries of sorbus aucuparia 
or mountain ash. 

5. Formose, C 6 H 12 6 (probably) is a sugar pro- 
duced synthetically from formaldehyde, CH 2 0. 

6. Dambose, or more commonly called inosite, 
C 6 H 12 6 2H 2 (crystallised) occurs in muscles, and 
in the brain, also in vegetables such as bean-pods, 
unripe peas and lentils, green cabbage, potato-sprouts, 
leaves of fraxinus excelsior (common ash), in walnut 
leaves, in grape juice, and in some kinds of caoutchouc 
from which it may be extracted by water. 

7. Mannose or seminose, C 6 H 12 6 , exists in some 
kinds of nuts, and may also be prepared artificially 
from mannite. 

Group II. Disaccharides, C 12 H 22 11 . 

The disaccharides may be regarded as the result 
of a combination of two molecules of glucose with one 
molecule of water removed: 

H -° 6 — C 12 H 24 12 lessH 2 0=C 12 H 22 11 . 



C 6 H 12 O e 

In fact, when these bodies (disaccharides) are headed 
with a dilute acid, they split up and form inver-sugar 
as explained under No. 2. 

8. Saccharose or cane sugar, C^H^O^ occurs 
widely in nature; in the sugar cane (up to 16 or 18 per 



SWEET CONDIMENTS 279 

centum) ; in the sugar beet * (up to 14 per centum) ; 
in sorghum (up to 9 per centum) ; in madder root or 
rubia tinctorum (up to 15 per centum); in coffee 
beans (6 to 7 per centum); in the stems of many- 
grasses to which the sorghum and sugar cane belong; 
in the date (20 to 30 per centum) ; in the sap of many- 
trees such as the birch, maple, and various kinds of 
palms, as the arenga saccharifera; in clover, timothy, 
Indian corn, barley, •walnuts, hazelnuts, and in many 
other plants and parts of plants. Bitter and sweet 
almonds contain no other sugar than saccharose. It 
occurs also in St. John's bread (the fruit of Ceratonia 
Siliqua), the sweet orange, melons, etc. To show 
that more than one kind of sugar may be present at 
the same time in some plant or fruit, the following 
figures are quoted from Kulish : 

Cane Sugar Glucose 

Pineapples contain . . .11.33 1.98 

Strawberries " . . .6.33 4.98 

Apricots " . . .6.04 2.74 

Ripe bananas " . . .5.00 10.00 

Apples " . . 1 to 5.40 7 to 13.00 

Of course, these figures refer only to the particular 
fruits examined at a particular time. 

Cane sugar is readily fermentable by yeast, produ- 
cing ethylic alcohol, carbonic acid gas, some amylic 
alcohol (fusel oil), glycerine, and succinic acid. 

* Of late years the sugar beet has been cultivated on a large 
scale in California, Utah, Kansas, Michigan, and other States. 
While the sugar-cane, in our Southern States, in Cuba, in Mexico, 
and in the Sandwich Islands yields from 15 to 19 per centum 
of saccharose, the sugar beet's yield is from 11 to 17§ per centum. 
However, the sugar beet has sometimes given as much as 19 
per centum of the saccharose. In Michigan, under very adverse 
seasonal and other circumstances, the beet has averaged a yield 
of 13§ per centum of saccharose. 



280 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

9. Milk sugar, or lactose, lactobiose or lactin, 
'C la H. 2a 11 + H ao (crystallised), occurs in the milk of 

mammalia; in the urine of females after child- 
birth, etc. It is fermentable with yeast, producing 
ethylic alcohol, carbonic acid, etc. 

10. Maltose or ptyalose, C 12 Sl 22 O 11 + B. 20 , occurs in 
the small intestine; and may be formed by acting 
upon the starch with extract of malt (containing 
diastase), or with ptyalin, the pancreatic juice, or the 
liver ferment. It is easily fermentable. 

11. Trehalose or mycose, C^H^O^ occurs in ergot 
and various fungi. In trehala, a sort of concreT 
tion is formed of the remains and digested portions 
of the twigs of a species of echinops, in Syria, which 
a certain insect eats, and envelops itself in the debris 
(trehala) . 

12. Agavose, obtained from the agave Americana. 

13. Cyclamose, from cyclamen Europseum (sow 
bread). 

14. Lupeose, from lupinus lutens. 
Group III. Polysaccharides. 

15. Raffinose, melitose or gossypose, C 18 H 32 16 + 
5H 2 (crystallised) occurs in the exudation ("man- 
na") of various species of eucalyptus; in the molasses 
separated from crude crystallised cane and beet sugar; 
in cotton seed and in barley. It is fermentable. 

16. Melezitose, C 18 H 32 16 + 5H 2 0, is obtained from 
Briancon manna. 

Group IV. Other sugars. 



SWEET CONDIMENTS 281 

17. Arabinose or pectinose, pectin sugar, C 5 H 10 O 5 , 
is obtained from cherry gum, and from certain kinds 
of gum arabic. It is scarcely fermentable. 

18. Mannite, C 6 H 14 6 , is obtained from manna. It 
exists in dog grass, celery, some fungi and algae, in the 
root of the aconitum napellus, and in other plants. 

19. Dulcite or melampyrite, C 6 H 14 6 , exists in the 
herb of melampyrum nemorosum (L.) or cow-wheat, 
and other plants. 

20. Isodulcite or rhamnose, C 6 H 12 5 is artificially 
prepared from various sources. 

There are several other similar bodies which have 
been classed with sugars, though they are more pro- 
perly alcohols. 

Large numbers of sugars, not yet met with in 
nature, have been obtained by synthesis, and the 
discovery of others, which theory shows must be 
obtainable is only a question of time. Many of these 
compounds are isomeric, that is, contain the same 
number of atoms of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. 
And yet they differ by reason of the different arrange- 
ment of the atoms in the several molecules. 

The so-called aromatic series of organic bodies 
(those which are derived from the benzol nucleus, 
C 6 H 6 . or are related to it) has furnished several 
compounds of intense sweetness, one of which, 
saccharin, has come into common use as a sweetening 
agent, either to replace sugar, in the diet of diabetic 
persons, or for sweetening confectionery made from 



282 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

glucose, etc. Its chemical name is orthosulphamine- 
benzoin-anhydride. Its formula is: 

CO 

C 7 H 5 NS0 2 , or C 6 H 4 NH 

Nso/' 

It is also known as glucide, saccharinol, saccharinose, 
saccharol, sycose, "zuckerin." Several forms of this 
product are on the market. One of them, in which 
the original saccharin is freed from an accompanying 
isomer which has but little sweetness, is about five 
hundred times as sweet as ordinary sugar. The com- 
mon saccharin is only three hundred times as sweet 
as ordinary sugar. 



XIX 

METAPHORIC USES OF SWEETNESS 
"Sweets to the sweet." 

The foregoing essay, on sweet condiments, sug- 
gested the consideration of the metaphoric uses of 
sweetness, so helpful in poetic and familiar language, 
either of which would be tame and insipid without 
some figures of rhetoric. Hence this brief inquiry 
into the origin of the idea of sweetness as intended 
to give expression to pleasurable sensations and emo- 
tions. 

Eastern, and semi-civilized nations have long been 
wont to make the freest use of metaphors in their 
speech, as have always done savages everywhere; 
appealing to all the senses and emotions. Nomadic 
Arabs and other Orientals who subsist largely on the 
date, which contains from twenty to thirty per cent, of 
sugar, very frequently use the equivalent of the word 
sweetness as a figure to express endearment, delight, 
happiness, contentment, and other kindred emotions, 
because this nutriment is so pleasing to the sense of 
taste. For the same reason savages appeal to this 
sense and those sensibilities, since they are known to 
be very fond of honey and of sweet fruits; except of 
course those savages of far northerly latitudes who 

283 



284 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

use other figures to express their emotions. The love 
of civilised beings for sweets and for their metaphoric 
uses in spoken as well as in written language is clearly 
an inheritance from their remote savage ancestry, 
and would that they were heirs to nothing worse! 
The word sweet has been traced, by logophilists, to 
the Aryan root swad, to taste, to eat, to please; 
svadu signifying sweet. 

If sugar had happened to be bitter or even taste- 
less instead of being sweet, it is not likely that man 
would consume as much as he does of this valuable 
aliment and condiment, for sweetness is unquestion- 
ably the chief property of sugars which renders them 
so agreeable to the taste; each having its peculiar 
savor and odor, as honey, unrefined cane sugar, 
treacle, maple sugar, date sugar, and others, which are 
more or less affected by coction; these savors and 
odors being as various as those of the flowers and 
fruits from which the sugars are derived. But there 
does not appear to be an odor of sweetness for the 
chemical product known as saccharin is odorless 
though five hundred times as sweet as cane sugar, 
notwithstanding Avon's Bard's qualification of the 
rose which he places in the mind of a love-sick maid 
who, in an impassioned discourse with her amorous 
swain, says: 

"... O, be some other name! 
What's in a name? That which we call a rose 
By any other name would smell as sweet; 
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called." 



METAPHOBIC USES OF SWEETNESS 285 

In Venus and Adonis, verse 1178, the Bard reiter- 
ates the idea of a sweet smell as follows: "Sweet 
issue of a sweet-smelling sire"; and in Sonnet 99, he 
again introduces this idea in the following sweet 
words : 

"The forward violet thus did I chide: 
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, 
If not from my love's breath?" 

The sweet Bard was undoubtedly well acquainted 
with the pleasing odor of honey and of unrefined sugar; 
but the alchemy of his time was not able to tell him 
that sweetness is without odor; this ignorance was, 
however, fortunate for poesy and music. But other 
poets had fallen into the same error, notably Spenser 
who, in the Faerie Queene, says: 

" No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on ground, 
No arborett with painted blossoms drest 
And smelling sweete, but there it might be fownd 
To bud out faire, and throwe her sweete smels al arownd." 

The good book, too, affords another example: 

"His lips like lilies dropping sweet-smelling myrrh." 

— The Song of Solomon, 5-13. 

To the question — How is it that chloroform smells 
sweet? — the answer is, that while sweet to the taste, 
it has not a sweet smell, but, being a highly volatile 
substance, its vapor penetrates the mouth cavity at 
almost the same moment that it is breathed through 
the nostrils and vice versa, and the senses of smell and 
taste are thus confused. The "sweet smell" of 



286 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

chloroform is therefore a delusion of the olfactive 
sense. 

In the works of many ancient, and of the great 
majority of modern, writers of poetry and prose, you 
doubtless have found in vast abundance, the meta- 
phoric uses of sweetness and often, too, in the form 
of such words as honey, honey-sweet, sweet honey, 
honey-moon, honey-tongued, meli, met, philomel, 
melodious, mellifluous, edus, edulcorate, edulcoration, 
suavis, dulcis, dulcet, dulcify, dulce, dulces, dolce, 
doux, douceur, douceurs, doucement, suess, suessigkeit, 
sweet, sweets, sweetening, sweeten, sweetly, sweeting, 
sugar, syrup, candy, etc., etc. 

Both literally and metaphoricly, in the Iliad and 
in the Odyssey, occur the words glycys, glykeros, edys 
(meaning sweet), for anything that is pleasing to the 
senses, and Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Lucretius, and many 
other Latin writers employed, metaphoricly, sweet- 
ness and its equivalents with great freedom. The 
word sugar does not occur in the Bible, while honey 
and sweetness are therein used very frequently in a 
literal and in a metaphoric sense. The sugar cane is 
there styled sweet reed, sweet cane. 

" The wise in heart shall be called prudent : and the sweetness 
of the lips increaseth learning." — Prov. 16-21. 

In the following, honey, bitter and sweet do not 
seem intended for contrast, while they illustrate 
allegory and metaphor: 

"The full soul loatheth an honey-comb; but to the hungry- 
soul every bitter thing is sweet." — Prov. 27-7. 



METAPHOKIO USES OF SWEETNESS 287 

Sweet used by itself as a simple substantive and 
sweet-heart as a compound substantive occur fre- 
quently in the works of many writers of prose and 
poesy, as do my honey, honey-sweet, sweet, honey. 
In this last, the adjective sweet in the compound 
substantive implies the existence of some other kind 
of honey, as the bitter or sour.* The compound 
adjectives honey-tongued, honey-mouthed, sweet- 
mouthed, etc., are also much used. How frequently 
too, writers of prose and poetry use the adjective 
mellifluous as well as many other modes of express- 
ing the idea of sweetness, of delight of the senses, of 
pleasure, enjoyment, love, etc.; moreover, sweetness 
is largely used in contrast to sourness or bitterness. 
The following Leonine couplet intended to character- 
ise the hypocrite is a good example of the contrast 
of sweetness and bitterness. 

" Mel in ore, verba lactis, 
Fel in corde, fraus in factis." 

Shortened in French, as: 

" Bouche de miel, coeur de fiel." 

Lengthened in English, as: 

"Honey in his mouth, words of milk, 
Gall in his heart, and fraud in his acts," 

Chaucer, too, in his "Troylus and Criseyde," con- 
trasts sweetness and bitterness in the following sweet 
verse : 

* Since honey has the taste and certain other properties of 
the particular flowers on whose nectar the bees feed, it is not 
strange that it should sometimes be bitter; and sweet honey- 
does often become sour. 



288 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

"And now swetnesse semeth more swete, 
That bitterness assayed was byforn; 
For out of wo in blisse now they flete." 



And Shakspeare, in All's Well that Ends Well, 
A. V, S. 2: 

"All yet seems well, and if it end so meet, 
The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet." 

Campoamor in his " Dolor as y Cantares" seldom 
uses the idea of sweetness, but the following is quoted 
from "Las dos copas," because he there has sweet and 
bitter in contrast. . . . 

"Yo, aunque el m^todo condene, 
Lo dulce en lo amargo escondo: 
Esta copa es la que tiene 
Dulce el borde, amargo el fondo." 

The following, contrast sweetness and sourness: 

" Speak sweetly, man, though thy looks be sour." 

—Richard II, 3, 2. 

"Item: she hath a sweet mouth." 

"That makes amends for her sour breath." 

— Two Gentlemen of Verona, 3, 1. 

"Ha, ha! keep time. How sour sweet music is 
When time is broke and no proportion kept!" 

— Richard II, 5, 5. 

"Lofty and sour, to them that lov'd him not; 
But to those men that sought him, sweet as summer." 

—King Henry VIII, 4, 2. 

Bitterness of feeling, mingled with loving paternal 
anxiety, expressed in honeyed words, is beautifully 



METAPHORIC USES OF SWEETNESS 289 

illustrated in the speech of Henry IV to his wayward 
son; contrasting his kingly relations with the people, 
to those of the second Richard. 



"My presence, like a robe pontifical, 
Ne'er seen but wonder'd at : and so my state, 
Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast 
And won by rareness such solemnity. 

The skipping king, he ambled up and down 
With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits, 

Mingled his royalty with capering fools, 

That, being daily swallowed by men's eyes, 
They surfeited with honey and began 
To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little 
More than a little is by much too much." 

—I King Henry IV, 3, 2. 

Among the modern Spanish poets, none better than 
Espronceda makes use of sweetness. A few examples 
only need be given. In his lirics, p. 115, occur the 
following: . . . 

"Tantas dulces alegrfas, 
Tantos magicos ensuefios 

^Donde fueron? . . ." 

In the Student of Salamanca: 

"Vedla, allf va que suefia en su locura 
Presente el bien que para siempre huy6: 
Dulces palabras can amor murmura: 
Piensa que escucha al p^rfido que amo." 

"Dulces horas de amor, yo las bendigo!" 



290 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

" Dulce armonia 
Que inspira al pecho 
Melancolia. . . ." 

In "Diablo Mundo": 

"Besos de dulce sabor; 
La dulce queja del primer amor. 
Dulce rayo de Amor que los suaviza." 

Sonnet : 

"Y vertiendo dulcisimo desmayo 
Cual balsamo suave en mis pesares, 
Endulzard to acento el llanto mio." 

In both ancient and modern writings of poetry 
and prose the idea of sweetness is commonly expressed 
verbally in the indicative, imperative, infinitive, and 
participle; substantively in many forms; and also 
adverbially; but with the greatest frequency adjec- 
tively in the positive, comparative, and superlative; 
the adjective sweet being employed to qualify sub- 
stantives expressive, through the outer senses, of 
the appreciation of the beauty of color and form, and 
of quality and quantity, of concordant sounds and of 
speech, wit, humor, jests, laughter, etc.; of pleasing 
odors; of agreeable savors; and of delicate touch; 
and through the inner sensibilities, of the feeling of 
happiness, of contentment, of prosperity, of adversity, 
of grief, of misery, etc. This adjective is figuratively 
employed to qualify life, humanity, health, person, 
thought, philosophy, memory, home, mercy, friend- 



METAPHORIC USES OF SWEETNESS 291 

ship, love, time, rest, sleep, death, etc., etc.; also as a 
term of endearment, of propitiation, of satire, of irony, 
and even to qualify revenge. The following are fair 
examples culled from the works of eminent men of 
letters, principally from Shakspeare's plays and poems 
in which alone the idea of sweetness is expressed, by 
the words sweet, sugar, candy, honey, philomel, 
melodious, etc., more than eight hundred times. 

The first, from Bailey, exemplifies the beauty of 
color as qualified by sweetness superlatively used: 

"Her cheek had the pale pearly pink 
Of sea shells, the world's sweetest tint, as though 
She lived, one half might seem, on roses sopped 
In silver dew." 

— Bailey's Festus. 

In the second quotation how simply and charm- 
ingly Longfellow expresses the idea of beauty of 
color, form, landscape, by the adjective sweet! 

"No tears 
Dim the sweet look that nature wears." 

— Sunrise on the Hills. 

Sweetness to qualify the beauty of form occurs as 
follows in Shakspearean sonnets: 

"Against this coming end you should prepare, 
And your sweet semblance to some other give. 

. . . Then you were 

Yourself again after yourself's decease, 

When your sweet issue your sweet form shall bear." 

— Sonnet 13. 



292 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

" In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights, 
Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, 
Of hand, of foot, of life, of eye, of brow, 
I see their antique pen would have express'd 
Even such a beauty as you master now." 

—Sonnet 106. 

Here quality and quantity are qualified seriously 
and humorously: 

"The eye of Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful 
thunder, 
Which, not to anger bent, is music, and sweet fire." 

— Love's Labour's Lost, 4, 2. 

"Sweet plenty, daughter of the fruitful sun." 

— From "Speed the Going — Welcome the Coming," 

by Edward A. Jenks. 

Costard to Moth — "My sweet ounce of man's flesh." 

— Love's Labour's Lost, 3, 1. ■ 

Concordant sounds could not be more sweetly 
qualified than by the sweet bard of Avon, and by 
the modern poets Holmes and Jenks. 

"Why, rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, 
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee 
And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, 
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, 
Under the canopies of costly state, 
And lull'd with the sound of sweetest melody?" 

—Henry IV, Part II, 3, 1. 

Metellus Cimber. 

"Is there no voice more worthy than my own, 
To sound more sweetly in great Caesar's ear 
For the repealing of my banished brethren?" 

— Julius Caesar, 3, 1. 



METAPHOKIC USES OF SWEETNESS 293 

Alonzo. 

"What harmony is this? My good friends, hark!" 
Gonzalo. 

"Marvellous sweet music!" 

— Tempest 3, 3. 

Lorenzo. 

"The man that hath no music in himself, 
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; 
The motions of his spirit are dull as night, 
And his affections dark as Erebus: 
Let no such man be trusted." 

— Merchant of Venice, 5, 1. 

" You think they are crusaders, sent 
From some infernal clime 
To pluck the eyes of Sentiment, 
And dock the tail of Rhyme, 
To crack the voice of Melody, 
And break the legs of Time" 

— The Music Grinders. O. W. Holmes. 

"There floated down the river of my rhyme 
A drowsy listener to the far-off chime 
Of sweetest bells, that from the hazy shore 
The throbbing ether to the Boatman bore." 

— The Boatman. Edward A. Jenks. 

The few selections to illustrate the sweet qualifica- 
tion of speech and wit were culled from very many of 
the best in the Shakspearean collection. 

Caesar to Metellus. 

. . . "Be not fond, 
To think that Caesar bears such rebel blood 
That will be thaw'd from the true quality 
With that which melteth fools; I mean, sweet words, 
Low-crooked court'sies and base spaniel-fawning." 

— Julius Ccesar, 3, 1. 



294 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Cassius. 

" Antony, 

The posture of your blows are yet unknown; 
But for your words, they rob the Hybla bees, 
And leave them honeyless." 

— Julius Ccesar, 5, 1. 
Northumberland to Bolingbroke. 

" And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar, 
Making the hard way sweet and delectable." 

— King Richard II, 2, 3. 
Biron to Costard. 

"When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name," 
And Rosaline they call her: ask for her." 

— Love's Labour's Lost, 3, 1. 
Romeo. 

"I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve 
For sweet discourses in our time to come." 

— Romeo and Juliet, 3, 5. 
Rosaline speaking of Biron. 

"That aged ears play truant at his tales 
And younger hearings are quite ravished; 
So sweet and voluble in his discourse." 

— Love's Labour's Lost, 2, 1. 
Armado to Moth. 

"Sweet smoke of rhetoric! 
He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he: 
I shoot thee at the swain." 

— Love's Labour's Lost, 3, 1. 

"A sweet touch, a quick venew of wit: snip, snap, quick and 
home; it rejoiceth my intellect: true wit." 

—Love's Labour's Lost, 5, 1. 
Costard. 

"O' my troth, most sweet jests! most icony vulgar wit!" 

— Love's Labour's Lost, 4, 1. 

SWEET SAVOR. 

"The time was once when thou unurged wouldst vow 
That never words were music in thine ear, 
That never object pleasing in thine eye, 



METAPHORIC USES OF SWEETNESS 295 

That never touch were welcome to thy hand, 
That never meat sweet-savour' d in thy taste, 
Unless I spake, or looked, or touch'd, or carved to thee." 
— Adriana to Antipholus of Syracuse. 

Comedy of Errors, 2, 2. 
"The setting sun, and music at the close, 
As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last. . . ." 

— The dying John of Gaunt, King Richard II, 2, 1. 

SWEET TOUCH. 

" So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not 
To those fresh morning drops upon the rose." 

— Love's Labour's Lost, 4, 3. 



Friar. 



ADVERSITY. 

''I'll give the armour to keep off that word; 
Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy, 
To comfort thee, though thou art banished." 

— Romeo and Juliet, 3, 3. 

"Sweet are the uses of adversity, 
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head: 
And this our life, exempt from public haunt 
Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, 
Sermons in stones and good in everything." 

— As You Like It, 2, 1. 

HAPPINESS. 

"True happiness is not the growth of earth, 
The soil is fruitless if you seek it there: 
'Tis an exotic of celestial birth, 
And never blooms but in celestial air. 
Sweet plant of Paradise! its seeds are sown 
In here and there a breast of heavenly mould, 
It rises slow, and buds, but ne'er was known 
To blossom here — the climate is too cold." 

— R. B, Sheridan. 



296 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

"Sweet, as the desert-fountain's wave 
To lips just cooled in time to save." 

— Bride of Abydos. Byron. 

"The beauty of life, the murmur of contentment, the sweet- 
ness of happiness, these marked many a tent of my people. ..." 

— Mendes. 

CONTENTMENT, PROSPERITY. 

"Where then will be the fruits, the happiness, the honey of 
contentment, the sweetness of prosperity?" — Mendes. 

"Oh calm, hush'd rich content, 
Is there a being, blessedness, without thee? 
How soft thou down'st the couch where thou dost rest, 
Nectar to life, thou sweet ambrosian feast." 

— John Maston. 



"The mind's content 
Sweetens all suff'rings of th' afflicted sense." 



-Nabb. 



"Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow, 
That I shall say good night till it be morrow." 

— Romeo and Juliet, 2, 2. 

GRIEF. 

"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, 
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; 
Raze out the written troubles of the brain; 
And with some sweet, oblivious antidote 
Cleanse the stuff' d bosom of that perilous stuff 
Which weighs upon the heart?" 

— Macbeth, 5, 3. 

MERCY. 

"Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods? 
Draw near them in being merciful : 
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge." 

—Titus Andronicus, 1, 2. 



METAPHORIC USES OF SWEETNESS 297 

HUMANITY. 
'•'Affliction is the wholesome soil of virtue: 
Where patience, honour, sweet humanity, 
Calm fortitude, take root, and strongly flourish." 

— Mallet and Thomson's Alfred, 

HEALTH. 

"Sweet health and fair desires consort your grace!" 

— Love's Labour's Lost, 2, 1. 

PERSON. 

"Sweet honey Greek, tempt me to no more folly." 

— Cressida to Diomed. Troilus and Cressida, 5, 2. 

"Well, she hath one o' my sonnets already: the clown bore 
it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it: sweet clown, sweeter 
fool, sweetest lady." 

— Love's Labour's Lost, 4, 3. 

"Item: she can milk; look you, a sweet virtue in a maid with 
clean hands." — Two Gentlemen of Verona, 3, 1. 

"Sweet saint, for charity be not so curst." 

—Richard III, 1, 2. 

"Sweet practiser, thy physic I will try; 

That ministers thine own death, if I die." 

—All's Well That Ends Well, 2, 1. 

"Three years! I wonder if she'll know me: 
I limp a little, and I left one arm 
At Petersburg, and I am grown as brown 
As the plump chestnuts on my little farm; 
And I am shaggy as the chestnut-burs, 
But ripe and sweet within, and wholly hers." 

— The Return. Edward A. Jenks. 

MEMORY. 

"Oh! he will tell thee that the wealth of worlds 
Should ne'er seduce his bosom to forego 
That sacred hour when stealing from the noise 



298 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Of care and envy, sweet remembrance soothes 
With virtue's kindest looks his aching breast, 
And turns his tears to rapture." 

— Pleasures of Imagination. Akenside. 

PHILOSOPHY. 

" Glad that you thus continue to resolve, 
To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy." 

— Taming of the Shrew, 1,1. 



"Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain, 
Where health and plenty cheer' d the lab 'ring swain." 

— The Deserted Village. Goldsmith. 

"Home, sweet home." 

— J. Howard Payne. 

FRIENDSHIP. 

"Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul! 
Sweet' ner of life, and solder of society! 
I owe thee much. Thou hast deserv'd of me 
Far, far beyond what I can ever pay. 
Oft have I proved the labours of thy love: 
And the warm efforts of the gentle heart, 
Anxious to please." 

— Blair's Grave, 

"Oh! let my friendship in the wreath, 
Though but a bud among the flowers, 
Its sweetest fragrance round thee breathe— 
'Twill serve to soothe thy weary hours." 

—Mrs. Wells. 

LOVE. 

"Sweet suggesting love, if thou hast sinned, 
Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it!" 

— Two Gentlemen of Verona, 2, 6. 

"Sweet love! sweet lines! sweet life!" 

— Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1, 2. 



METAPHORIC USES OF SWEETNESS %\ 

" Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear, 
Made tunable with every sweetest vow." 

— John Keats. 

"O hateful hands, to tear such loving words! 
Injurious wasps, to feed on such sweet honey 
And kill the bees that yield it with your stings! " 

— Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1, 2. 



" Why, what ,a candy deal of courtesy 
This fawning greyhound did then proffer me! " 

—Henry IV, Part I, 1, 3. 

"Good night, sweet Lord Menelaus." 

"Sweet draught: sweet, quoth'a! sweet sink, sweet sewer." 

— Troilus and Cressida, 5, 1. 

"Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce." 
"And is it not well served in to a sweet goose?" 

— Romeo and Juliet, 2, 4. 

"A blister on his sweet tongue, with his heart 
That put Armado's page out of his part." 

— Love's Labour's Lost, 5, 2. 



"We have conversed and spent our hours together: 
And though myself have been an idle truant, 
Omitting the sweet benefit of time 
To clothe mine age with angel-like perfection. 
Yet hath Sir Proteus, for that's his name, 
Made use and fair advantage of his days." 

— Two Gentlemen of Verona, 2, 3. 

" In our two loves there is but one respect, 
Though in our lives a separable spite, 
Which though it alter not love's sole effect, 
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight." 

— Sonnet 36. Shakspeare. 



300 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 



"Good night, good night! as sweet repose and rest 
Come to thy heart as that within my breast!" 

— Romeo and Juliet, 2, 2. 



" And for we think the eagle-winged pride 
Oi' sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts, 
With rival-hating envy set on you 
To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle, 
Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep." 

— King Richard II, 1, 3. 

. . . "Let the sleep 

Of sweet forgetfulness sit on your eyes 

And dull your ears : so may your dreams be deep 

The while you pass unconscious to the skies." 

— The Princes in the Tower. Edward A . Jenks 

DEATH. 

" O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem 
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! 
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem 
For that sweet odour which doth in it live. 
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye 
As the perfumed tincture of the roses, 
Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly 
When summer's breath their masked buds discloses: 
But, for their virtue only is their show, 
They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade, 
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so; 
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made: 
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, 
When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth." 

— Sonnet 54. Shakspeare. 



METAPHOBIC USES OF SWEETNESS 301 



Note. — At a meeting of a literary society, during three hours 
discussion which followed the introduction of the subject of 
sweet metaphors and kindred figures of rhetoric, one of the scho- 
liasts, whose words all treasure because they are golden in sapi- 
ence and wit, reached the singular conclusion that the use of 
metaphors "is but confession of verbal bankruptcy." This oft 
perpetrated chestnut, although exact and true in respect to the 
abuse of these vivid figures, can scarcely be applied to those 
metaphors that are so skilfully employed by the accomplished 
scholars who have graced the literature of past ages, and by 
modern writers of eminence. However greater may become the 
exchequer of words, metaphors will generally find their right 
place in the literature of civilised nations and in Oriental lan- 
guages, and their use is not likely ever to be abandoned notwith- 
standing the strictures of hypercriticism. Language necessarily 
teems with figures of rhetoric, without which it would be so dry, 
tedious, and uninteresting. If all these figures were discarded 
there would be little left for the concise and elegant expression 
of thought, the clear conveyance of ideas, the pleasing instruction 
of the young, and the agreeable entertainment of all readers and 
listeners. It may be opportune to call attention to the fact that 
the learned critic, in denouncing metaphors, did inconsistently 
use the distinctly metaphoric phrase "confession of verbal 
bankruptcy," possibly because he then thought of no more 
forcible mode of expressing his condemnation. 



XX 

SLANG SPEECH 

"As thou wouldest be cleane in arraye, 
So be cleane in thy speeche." 

The discussion on the metaphoric uses of sweetness 
suggested the subjoined examination of slang speech 
which so abounds in metaphors. In beginning this 
examination, the members of the society thought it 
proper that certain figures of speech be clearly de- 
fined, since all philosophers have so long insisted 
upon the exact definition of terms, without which dis- 
cussion would be profitless. 

Figures of speech, which are simply the expression 
of mental images, said Taxicus, should be placed in 
the ordinal line, followed by the genus trope, from 
trepein, to turn — which signifies the changing of an 
expression from its original meaning to another — 
and the species metaphor and allegory; while slang 
should have but the lower rank of a sub-species — a 
sort of rhetorical lance-corporal. 

Metaphor, from metapherein, to transfer, is a 
similitude reduced to a single word, said Aphoristicus. 

Allegory, from alios, other, and agoreuein, is the 

302 



SLANG SPEECH 303 

description of one thing under the image of another, 
said Rhetoricus. 

Slang, itself a slang word, suggesting a connection 
with to sling, is an unauthorised vulgar colloquial 
mode of expression, said Onomatopoeiticus. 

Marked as is the difference between metaphor and 
allegory, these two figures are so often used in con- 
juction that they should be examined together, and 
there is in slang so much of both metaphor and alle- 
gory that, though slang be of low cast, it should be 
included in the examination. The many well coined 
legitimate words and phrases which are too often 
regarded as slang, even by intelligent people, and the 
commonly used vicious locutions will, of course, be 
excluded. 

Metaphor was defined by a distinguished philo- 
mathist as " a species of rhetorical trope founded on 
the resemblance which one object bears to another. 
It is in reality only comparison or simile expressed 
in an abridged form. For example, the sentence, 
'These men are lambs in the family, but lions in the 
field,' is an example of metaphor; but to say, ' These 
men are like lambs in the family, etc./ is an instance 
of simile or comparison. In short, the peculiar dis- 
tinction between these two figures is, that in simile 
we say one object is like another, while in metaphor 
we drop the word expressing the similitude, and say 
one object is another. And hence the peculiar bold- 
ness which characterises metaphor, and which is not 
to be found in the same degree in any of the figures 



304 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

of rhetoric. Those ordinary metaphors which long 
use has sanctioned have a tendency, in all languages, 
to sink to the level of common terms." 

Allegory is defined, by a near relation of the philo- 
mathist just quoted, as "consisting in choosing a 
secondary subject having all its properties and circum- 
stances resembling those of the principal subject, 
and describing the former in such a manner as to 
represent the latter. The principal subject is thus 
kept out of view, and we are left to discover it by 
reflection." 

From the many good examples of metaphor and 
allegory given by the author of the foregoing para- 
graph, the following are quoted partly to illustrate 
the commingling of the two figures.* 

" Edward's sev'n sons, whereof thyself art one, 
Were sev'n fair branches, springing from one root; 
Some of these branches by the dest'nies cut: 
But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Glo'ster, 
One nourishing branch of his most royal root, 
Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded, 
By Envy's hand and Murder's bloody axe." 

—Richard II, 1, 3. 

"Thou dwellest in the soul of Malvina, son of 
mighty Ossian. My sighs arise with the beam of the 
east: my tears descend with the drops of night. I 
was a lovely tree in thy presence, Oscar, with all my 
branches round me : but thy death came like a blast 
from the desert, and laid my green head low; the 

* A good example of the commixture of metaphor and alle- 
gory occurs in Scene iv, Act v, of the third part of King Henry VI. 



SLANG SPEECH 305 

spring returned with its showers, but no leaf of mine 
arose." 

As an example of strained metaphor, the same 
author gives the following letter of Tamerlane to 
Bajazet. 

" Where is the monarch who dares resist us? Where 
is the potentate who doth not glory in being num- 
bered among our attendants? As for thee, descended 
from a Turcoman sailor, since the vessel of thy un- 
bounded ambition hath been wreck'd in the gulf of 
thy self-love, it would be proper, that thou shouldst 
take in the sails of thy temerity, and cast the anchor 
of repentance in the port of sincerity and justice, 
which is the port of safety; lest the tempest of our 
vengeance make thee perish in the sea of the punish- 
ment thou deservest." * 

A little digression, by way of mental recess, may 
not be untimely, moreover it pertains, though in- 
directly, to the subject under consideration. The 
value of figures of speech is so well illustrated by the 
facetious Doctor Samuel Ferguson in his Father Tom 
and the Pope, or a Night in the Vatican, that it is im- 
possible to refrain from quoting the following passages : 

"You see, says his Riv'rence — by this time they 
wor mixing their third tumbler — the writings ov 
them Fathers is to be thrated wid great veneration; 
and it 'ud be the height of presumption in any one 
to sit down to interpret them widout providing him- 

* The author of limping Timur's letter could certainly have 
given many "points" to the chronic metaphorist Bunyan. 



306 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

self wid a genteel assortment ov the best figures ov 
rhetoric, sich as mettonymy, hyperbol, cattychrasis, 
prolipsis, mettylipsis, superbaton, pollysyndreton, 
hustheronprotheron, prosodpeia, and the like, in 
ordher that he may never be at a loss for shuitable 
sintiments when he comes to their high flown pas- 
sidges. For unless we thrate them Fathers liberally 
to a handsome allowance ov thropes and figures, 
they'd set up heresy at ons't, so they would. 

"It's thrue for you, says the Pope; the figures of 
spache is the pillars ov the Church. 

" Bedad, says his Riv'rence, I dunna what we'd do 
widout them at all. 

"Which one do you prefir? says the Pope; that is, 
says he, which figure of spache do you find most use- 
fullest when you're hard set? 

"Metaphour's very good, says his Riv'rence, and 
so's metonomy — and I've known prosodypeia stand 
to me at a pinch mighty well — but for a constancy, 
superbaton's the figure for my money. Divil be in 
me, says he, but I'd prove black white, as fast as a 
horse 'ud throt, wid only a good stock of superbaton. 

"Faix, says the Pope, wid a sly look, you'd need 
to have it backed, I judge, wid a small taste of 
assurance. 

"Well now, jist for that word, says his Riv'rence, 
I'll prove it widout aither one or other. Black, says 
he, is one thing and white is another thing. You 
don't conthravene that? But everything is aither 
one thing or another thing; I defy the Apostle Paul 



SLANG SPEECH 307 

to get over that dilemma. Well! if anything be one 
thing, well and good; but if it be another thing, then 
it's plain it isn't both things, and so can't be two 
things — nobody can deny that. But what can't be 
two things must be one thing — ergo, whether it's 
one thing or another thing, it's all one. But black 
is one thing and white is another thing — ergo, black 
and white is all one. Quod erat demonsthrandum! 

"Stop a bit, says the Pope, I can't althegither give 
into your second minor — no — your second major, 
says he, and he stopped. Faix, then, says he, getting 
confused, I don't rightly remimber where it was 
exactly that I thought I seen the flaw in your pre- 
mises. Howsomdiver, says he, I don't deny that it's 
a good conclusion, and one that 'ud be ov materi'l 
service to the Church if it was dhrawn with a little 
more distinctiveness." . 

Slang speech, nearly all philologists agree to have 
arisen very soon after the principle of mine and thine 
began to be violated; organized bands of evil doers 
having early found it necessary to invent modes of 
communication with each other unintelligible to 
their victims. Such, doubtless, is the origin of slang. 
Of the classes of vagabonds known as tramps, gypsies, 
beggars and thieves, each formed a peculiar jargon or 
gibberish suited to its purposes by the use of pithy 
words and phrases, ingenious anagrams, strained 
metaphors and extravagant allegory in the tongue 
of its own country. From these turbid streams has 
arisen the slang of the prize-ring, of the gaming table, 



308 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

of the farm, field, and turf, of the plains, of the 
trades, of waggoners, of seafarers, of the railway, of 
cyclers, of commerce, of the bourse, of the stage, 
of the press, of the college, of the learned professions, 
and of polite society. 

A glance at the words used in some European 
tongues to express our idea of slang clearly shows its 
derivation from the locutions of the wicked. Slang 
speech is rendered in German as gaunersprache, 
thieves' tongue; in Spanish as lengua franca, which 
was the jargon of rascally Levantine traders, or as 
lengua tsigana, zinguela, or gitana (gitana being a 
corruption of egiptiana); in Italian as lingua jur- 
besca, roguish tongue, as gergo, jargon, gibberish, 
and as lingua zingara or zingana; in French as argot, 
from jargon, which is said to date no farther back 
than the fifteenth century when certain associations 
of vagabonds infested the dark, narrow streets of 
Paris. Some historians say that nothing relating to 
French argot could be traced anteriorly to the year 
1427 when the gypsies, supposed to be Hussite refu- 
gees from Bohemia — hence their name Bohemiens — 
made their first appearance in Paris; and concluded 
that these nomadic creatures furnished the elements 
of the jargon. Other authors assert that slang has 
nothing in common with the gypsy tongue which is 
called Romany. 

Borrow, in his work bearing the title of The Bible 
in Spain, says, on the authority of an ancient his- 
torian, that in or about 1416 the Peloponesus was 



SLANG SPEECH 309 

inhabited by seven principal nations, one of which 
was from Egypt. He further says that Bataillard 
believed these "Egyptians" to be the same people 
now known as Gypsies, and suggests that from these 
seven nations originated the seven jargons; and also 
says that the number seven seems, in a special way, 
to be connected with the children of Roma. Bor- 
row's "Lavengro" and "Romany Rye or the Gypsy 
Gentleman," contain very many examples of gypsy 
jargon. 

The foregoing statement of the origin of the gyp- 
sies is traversed by more recent writers who believe 
that the original home of the so-called gypsies was in 
India where they were low caste rope, basket, and 
fan makers and generally thieves; their name Ro- 
many being derived, as it is said, from rom, man — 
plural roma — from the Hindi word domba, low caste 
man; and their jargon is now called the Romany 
tongue. It is written that, after they were driven 
from India in 1400 by the destroying conqueror 
Tamerlane, they scattered themselves throughout the 
west, and were called Charami, thieves, by the Arabs; 
Tchingenes, in Turkey; Cyganis, in Wallachia and 
Moldavia; Pharaoh Nepec, Pharaoh's people, in Hun- 
garia where they abound; Zigeuner, in Germany; 
Tsiganes, Gitanos, etc., in Spain; Zingari, etc., in 
Italy. It is also said that they were self exiled Hin- 
doo pariahs who lived on the flesh even of diseased 
animals. The true origin of the gypsies was still in 
doubt early in this century, and this doubt is admi- 



310 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

rably set forth by the charming songster Beranger in 
the following stanzas of 

"les bohemiens. 
Sorciers, bateleurs, ou filous, 
Reste immonde 
D'un ancien monde; 
Sorciers, bateleurs, ou filous. 
Gais bohemiens, d'ou venez vous? 

D'ou nous venous, Ton n'en sait rien. 

L'hirondelle, 

D'ou nous vient-elle? 
D'ou nous venons, l'on n'en sait rien. 
Ou nous irons, le sait-on bien? 

Sans pays, sans prince et sans lois, 

Notre vie 

Doit faire en vie; 
Sans pays, sans prince, et sans lois 
L'homme est heureux un jour sur trois." 

Certain French writers, among them Victor Hugo, 
are disposed to regard argot as a veritable language, 
because, they urge, "it has a literature." This does 
not seem to be a sufficient reason, since there do not 
exist fixed rules for speaking or writing argot whose 
name and synonyms are against this view.* It is 
very generally acknowledged that gypsy and other 

* Statisticians have striven to enumerate the Gypsies in 
Europe, but so far have not been able to do so with precision, 
partly owing to the fact that these nomads wander from coun- 
try to country. However, the number is believed to be over 
900,000, distributed through Hungary, Russia, Austria, Turkey, 
Roumania, Servia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Germany, Poland, France, 
England, Spain and Italy. The largest numbers are said to 
be in Russia (250,000), in Roumania (250,000), in Hungary 
(196,000), in Turkev (100,000), and the smallest in England 
(20,000), and in France (5,000). 



SLANG SPEECH 311 

rogue-jargons are as different as the languages of the 
nations through whose territories these vagrants have 
travelled. In whatever tongue the gypsy speaks, 
he retains inverted and metaphoric words taken from 
the Hindi, Hebrew, Latin, Turkish, Hungarian, Bo- 
hemian, Polish, Russian, Lithuanian, German, Italian, 
Spanish, Portuguese, French, or English, etc., etc. 
His speech is simply slang of any of those tongues 
and cannot, in reason, be classed as a single, fixed 
and distinct language. La Rousse quotes a parody 
on the ten commandments written in French argot 
by a thief, but in this case the language is purely 
French with extravagant metaphors. He also refers 
to the argotic poems of the professional thief Frangois 
Villon, and gives, in full, letters of assassins in charac- 
teristic French argot, likewise a declaration of love 
from a thief to a woman of whom he was enamored; 
all of which productions were simply corrupted 
French in strained metaphor and allegory. 

" Declaration d' amour d'un voleur a une femme qu'il aime. Argot. 

"Girofle largue: 

"Depuis le reluit ou j'ai gambille' avec trezigue et re- 
mouche' tes chasses et ta frime d'alteque, le dardant a coque" le 
rifle dans mon palpitant, qui n'aquige plus que pour trezigue; 
je ne roupille que poitou, je pommerai la sorbonne si ton palpi- 
tant ne fade pas les sentiments du mien. Le reluit et la sorgue, 
je ne rembroque que trezigue, et si tu ne me prends a la bonne, 
to me verras bientot mourir." 

TRADUCTION. 

"Aimable femme, 

"Depuis le jour ou j'ai danse 1 avec toi et vu tes yeux et 
ta mine piquante, l'amour a mis le feu dans mon coeur, qui ne 



312 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

bat que pour toi; je ne dors plus; je perdrai la tete si ton coeur 
ne partage pas les sentiments du mien. La jour et la nuit, je 
ne vois que toi, et si tu ne m'aimes, tu me verras bientot mourir." 

In England, the slang of vagabonds seems to have 
become generally known in about the middle of the 
sixteenth century when the "Caveat for Common 
Cursetors, etc.," of Thomas Harman was published, 
as shown by Francis Grose in the preface to the 
second edition, 1788, of his "Classical Dictionary of 
the Vulgar Tongue" where he gives a brief bibliogra- 
phy of the rogues' jargon as follows: 

"A caveat for common cursetors, vulgarly called 
vagabones, set forth by Thomas Harman, for the utili- 
ty and proffyt of hys naturall countrey. Newly 
augmented, and imprinted, A. D. 1567. Lond." 

"The canting Academy; or villanies discovered: 
wherein are shown the mysteries and villanous prac- 
tices of that wicked crew, commonly known by the 
names of hectors, trapanners, gilts, etc. With several 
new catches and songs. Also a compleat canting 
dictionary, both of old words and such as are now 
most in use. Second edition." (no date.) "the 
dedication is signed R. Head." 

"Hell upon earth; or the most pleasant and delec- 
table history of Whittington's college, otherwise 
(vulgarly) called Newgate . . . Lond. 1703." 

"The scoundrels' dictionary; or an explanation 
of the cant words used by thieves, house-breakers, 
street-robbers, and pickpockets about town, etc. 
Lond. 1754." 



SLANG SPEECH 313 

In Beaumont and Fletcher's comedy of the Beggars' 
Bush, Act 2, Scene 1, the following occurs: 

". . . provide me lum enough, 
And lour to bouze with." 

Lum then meant strong liquor, lour, money, and 
to bouze, to drink. Bene bouze, good drink. Bouzing- 
ken, ale-house. Duds, clothes. Pedlars' French, 
equivalent to thieves' Latin. Clapper-dudgeon, a born 
beggar. Abram-man, a sturdy beggar who counter- 
feited madness* Dommerer, a beggar feigning dumb- 
ness. A crank, a deceiver, a counterfeit. In the 
"Coxcomb," by the same authors; argent (silver) is 
corrupted into "argot." 

"I will give dy worship two shillings in good argot." 

— Act 3, Scene 3. 

The bibliography of jargon, in one of the recent 
slang dictionaries published in England, consists of 
one hundred and twenty titles. 

The following is a fair example of rogues' slang 
among the Irish. f 

"The night before Larry was stretched, 
The boys they all paid him a visit; 
A bit in their sacks, too, they fetched — 
They sweated their duds till they riz it; 
For Larry was always the lad, 

When a friend was condemned to the squeezer, 

* In King Lear, Edgar, to escape the fury of his persecutor, 
is disguised as a bedlam beggar. " Poor Turlygod ! Poor Tom! " 

f This song, which bears the title of the Death of Socrates, is 
facetiously ascribed to the Rev. Robert Borrowes, Dean of St, 
Finbar's Cathedral, Cork. — Reliques of Father Prout. 



314 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

But he'd pawn all the togs that he had, 

Just to help the poor boy to a sneezer, 
And moisten his gob 'fore he died. 
'Pon my conscience, dear Larry,' says I, 

'I'm sorry to see you in trouble, 
And your life's cheerful noggin run dry, 

And yourself going off like its bubble! 
'Hould your tongue in that matter,' says he; 

' For the neckcloth I don't care a button, 
And by this time to-morrow you'll see 

Your Larry will be dead as mutton: 
All for what? 'Kase his courage was good!' 
The boys they came crowding in fast; 

They drew their stools close round about him, 
Six glims round his coffin they placed — 

He couldn't be well waked without 'em." etc., etc. 

Criticus says of slang that it is "a vocabulary of 
genuine words or unmeaning jargon, used always 
with an arbitrary and conventional signification, and 
generally with humorous intent. It is mostly coarse, 
low, and foolish, although in some cases, owing to 
circumstances of the time, it is racy, pungent, and 
pregnant of meaning. Cant is a phraseology com- 
posed of genuine words soberly used by some sect, 
profession, or sort of men, in one legitimate sense 
which they adopt to the exclusion of others as having 
peculiar virtue, and which thereby becomes peculiar 
to themselves. Cant is more or less enduring, its 
use continuing with no variation of meaning through 
generations. Slang is very evanescent. It generally 
passes out of use and out of mind in the course of a 
few years, and often in a few months." * 

* Words and Their Uses. Richard Grant White. 



SLANG SPEECH 315 

Criticus mentions but one kind of cant — that par- 
ticular form used in not a very distant past and in our 
days — whereas other high authorities believe that 
many centuries ago, cant or chant was originally the 
style of utterance of mendicants who, to excite com- 
miseration and secure alms, whiningly chanted their 
affected ills and needs; thieves and other miscreants 
also canting their jargon in peculiarly whining tones. 
Slang, the critic says, soon passes out of use. This is 
true of the great majority of slang words, but too 
many, of inferior order, creep into and find permanent 
lodgment in modern tongues. Those well coined pithy 
slangs that serve to enrich and embellish language 
are readily adopted, but generally their original 
character of slang is soon forgotten. The occasional 
assertion that language began in slang does not appear 
to be well founded, and no trustworthy testimony 
has been adduced as likely to sustain this view. It 
has been well said that language was formed by agree- 
ment among men that certain words or signs be used 
to express their ideas of different objects, and it is not 
likely that slang was used until luxury had existed 
for a time, until there was enough superfluity to ex- 
cite cupidity and finally to lead to the organisation 
of bands of thieves who, for their purposes, began to 
use words unknown to their victims. Doubtless the 
beggars, thieves, gamins, and wits of Babylon, 
Niniveh, Thebes, Memphis. Athens, and Rome used 
slang speech or its equivalent, but nothing, so far, 
has been deciphered from cuneiform inscriptions or 



316 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

from Egyptian hierogliphs to establish the existence 
in those remote times, of a slang literature of the 
wicked or of the learned; nor does anything like slang 
appear in the writings of the facetious poets of Greece 
or Rome. The difference between cant and slang is 
that while cant is the chanting of genuine words and 
phrases, slang consists ordinarily in the use of meta- 
phors frequently joined to allegory in sentences 
spoken naturally though often chaunted. Slang evi- 
dently had its beginning in the cant, chant, or chaunt 
of beggars and was soon adopted by thieves, probably 
on account of the whining style of enunciation. 
The particular kinds of cant spoken by some religious 
sects, by modern Aminadab sleeks, by neotartufnans, 
and by emotional persons, and which do not neces- 
sarily contain metaphor or allegory, are quite distinct 
from the cant of beggars and thieves. 

Besides metaphorical and allegorical slang, beggars, 
thieves, street venders, and mountebanks in England 
and in the United States use back slang, rhyming 
slang, recitative cant, and patter. 

The. variety of jargon known as back slang consists 
of the inversion of words so that they form new words 
or anagrams; as selppa for apples; as stuntsehc for 
chestnuts; dlog for gold; revlis for silver; on doog 
for no good; efmk for knife; erif for fire; mur for 
rum; nig for gin, reeb for beer; occabot for tobacco; 
nam for man; yad for day; soush for house; etc. 
See Mayhew's "Poor of London." 

Rhyming slang consists of the recitation in canting 



SLANG SPEECH 317 

style of doggerel verses by street charlatans to vaunt 
their spurious wares often wrapped in bright colored 
papers on which are imprinted slangy songs composed 
for them by needy rhymsters. 

Recitative cant is used largely by gossiping, tale- 
bearing, slandering, wheedling gaberlunzies (Scott) 
mendicants, swindlers, and other evil doers. 

Patter is of two kinds, one of which consists of 
chattering jargon by mountebanks and by strolling 
venders of fancy articles after the manner of Autoly- 
cus in "The Winter's Tale"; while the other kind 
is the glib talk used for the distraction of the audience 
by the better class of "conjurers" in the performance 
of their tricks. 

Even of such a trifling subject as patter, the best of 
examples is found in the great master's works. The 
thieving stroller Autolycus is ushered among feasting 
peasants and offers them his wares in pattering 
rhyme : 

'Lawn as white as driven snow; 
Cyprus black as e'er was crow; 
Gloves as sweet as damask roses; 
Masks for faces and for noses; 
Bugle bracelet, necklace amber, 
Perfume for a lady's chamber; 
Golden quoifs and stomachers, 
For my lads to give their dears: 
Pins and poking-sticks of steel, 
What maids lack from head to heel: 
Come buy of me, come; come buy, come buy; 
Buy, lads or else your lasses cry: 
Come buy." 

— The Winter's Tale, 4, 4. 



318 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

The following are selected from the many fair ex- 
amples of slang words and phrases which are not 
metaphors: A violent snow-storm is called a ''bliz- 
zard"; the "gamin, gutter-snipe, street urchin" calls 
his sweetheart his "steady"; the mortally wounded 
ruffian says that his "goose is cooked"; the "confi- 
dence man and bunco steerer buncoes," cheats or 
swindles unwary wayfarers; a "bummer" is a worth- 
less wretch ever ready to receive gratuities or to be 
regaled with strong drink; a simpleton is called a 
"galoot" which is said to be derived from the Hebrew 
word galuth, meaning bondage, captivity. To "shove 
the queer" is to pass counterfeit money. The word 
pal, comrade, is believed to have come from the 
Spanish jargon plal, which signifies comrade. 

In many other varieties of slang used by all classes 
in France, England, and America neither metaphor 
nor allegory enter. They are so well known that only 
a few examples need be given. 

Petit Creve, for the individual called dude, was 
thirty years ago used in France. Since that time 
many new words coined to express the same idea have 
passed out of fashion. Fin de siecle was among the 
slangy expressions lately used to convey the idea 
of "up to date" which is dying out. 

A certain British vessel very recently was to sail 
from a well known harbor, but the order was revoked 
because "the weather was altogether too dusty to 
venture outside." 

In an eating-house of "the slums," a customer 



SLANG SPEECH 319 

calling for some food, the order was given to the cook 
in the following style: "De cove will tackle a brace 
of white wings wid de sunny side up." By this was 
meant the man wants two eggs fried on one side. 

Some years ago a slang arose, the origin of which 
is unknown to the Castanean Fraternity. It appears 
to be used with complimentary intent. Foi instance, 
he who desires to convey the idea that a thing is good, 
right, proper, or correct, says "there are no flies on 
it," or that a woman is charming and beautiful, says 
"there are no flies on her." It happened not very 
long ago that a gentleman, who had entered the 
political arena, found it expedient to give at his elegant 
home an elaborate dinner to his new friends. At the 
end of the feast the guests entered the drawing room 
to take leave of the hostess. Each made his bow in 
silence except one who said: "Missus there was no 
floys on the dinner, and there bees no floys on you 
nayther," and honestly thought that he could not 
have spoken more flatteringly. 

The perversion of the adverb awfully is now of such 
frequent occurrence that it is worthy of being placed 
among the senseless slangs just mentioned. To ex- 
press gratitude the gilded youth of to-day must need 
say — "thanks awfully." He is "awfully glad" to 
see his friends who are always "awfully good" to 
him, and he is always "awfully happy" in the com- 
pany of these "awfully sweet and pretty" girls. 

A very common expression in the mouths of those 
who fear to use certain expletives, is, "where the 



320 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

dickins has he gone." This word seems to have 
been used in the Elizabethan period for it occurs in 
"The Merry Wives of Windsor," 3, 2: Mrs. Page 
loquitur — "I cannot tell what the dickins his name 
is my husband had him of"; the dickins being a 
contraction of devilkins. 

Before concluding it may be well to append the 
following excerpts from two English publications, as 
they illustrate, in measure, the present state of slang 
among people of culture of Anglo Saxon extraction. 

"A lecture delivered in Carlisle, by the Rev. 
Stowell Brown, contained the following amusing 
but instructive passage : 'The point to which I have 
next to direct attention is manliness in speech. 
There are many young men who seem to consider it 
essential to manliness that they should be masters of 
slang. The sporting world, like its brother the swell- 
mob, has a language of its own; but this dog-English 
extends far beyond the sporting world. It comes 
with its hordes of barbarous words threatening the 
entire extinction of genuine English ! Now, just listen 
for a moment to our fast young man, or the ape of a 
fast young man, who thinks that to be a man he must 
speak in the dark phraseology of slang. If he does 
anything on his own responsibility, he does on his own 
"hook." If he sees anything remarkably good, he 
calls it a "stunner," the superlative of which is a 
"regular stunner." If a man is requested to pay a 
tavern bill, he is asked if he will " stand Sam." If he 
meets a savage-looking dog, he calls him an "ugly 



SLANG SPEECH 321 

customer." If he meets an eccentric man, he calls 
him a "rummy old cove." A sensible man is a "chap 
that is up to snuff." Our young friend never scolds 
but " blows up "; never pays, but " stumps up"; never 
finds it difficult to pay, but is "hard up"; never feels 
fatigued, but is " used up." He has no hat, but shelters 
his head beneath a "tile." He wears no neck-cloth, 
but surrounds his throat with a "choker." He lives 
nowhere, but there is some place where he "hangs 
out." He never goes away or withdraws, but he 
"bolts," he "slopes," he "mizzles," he " makes himself 
scarce," he "walks his chalks," he "makes his tracks," 
he "cuts his stick," or, which is the same thing, he 
"cuts his lucky." The highest compliment you can 
pay him is to tell him that he is a "regular brick." 
He does not profess to be brave, but he prides him- 
self on being "plucky." Money is a word which he 
has forgotten, but he talks a good deal about "tin," 
and the "needful," "the rhino," and "the ready." 
When a man speaks he "spouts"; when he holds his 
peace, he "shuts up"; when he is humiliated, he is 
"taken down a peg or two," and "made to sing 
small." Mow a good deal of this slang is harmless; 
many of the terms are, I think, very expressive ; yet 
there is much slang that is objectionable."' 

"origin and meaning of words commonly used, 
but unworthy the dictionary. 

"From the London Mail. 

"The use of slang is spreading alarmingly in all 



322 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

classes of London society. Even at the best 'At 
Homes' the regrettable practice is more noticeable 
than ever. Slang has one, and only one, advantage. 
It often conveys to the mind a clearer and more dis- 
tinct sense of what is meant than would classic 
language. 

"'High-falutin' is much in evidence just now as a 
slangism. It means 'putting side on,' being 'stuck 
up,' 'showing off,' and such like human failings. 
'Come now, none o' yer high-falutin',' when expressed 
in an angry voice by a big man, is a solemn warning 
to the other man not to appear what he is not, neither 
to 'show off' nor imitate the 'swell' or the 'fancy.' 

"The vernacular is particularly rich in slang syno- 
nyms for 'money,' many of which are remarkable in 
their appropriateness. In scores of ways one may 
speak of our coin, among them being 'the actual,' 
'the needful,' or 'the wherewithal'; 'tin,' 'brass,' 
'blunt,' 'chips/ 'dibs,' or 'pieces'; 'dust,' 'chink,' 
'shot,' 'shekels,' or 'spondulics'; 'stamps,' 'feathers,' 
or 'palm-oil,' which last is such an obviously appli- 
cable word for it that 'shin-plaster' seems feeble by 
comparison. 

"These epithets, however, are not more curious 
than the technical and trade slang which was brought 
to the notice of the Royal Commission on Labor. 
Among the quaint terms, as set forth in the report 
of the evidence, are these: 'Bell-horse,' 'caunched,' 
'fudd,' 'mungs,' 'slop-dash work,' 'sprigger,' 'tingles,' 
and 'slugger.' 



SLANG SPEECH 323 

" 'Booze ' has become familiar through a song, 
'Come Where the Booze Is Cheaper.' In this con- 
nection a story, said to be authentic, is being told. 

" On the terrace, beneath the windows of the Royal 
apartments at Windsor Castle, the Guards' band was 
playing a livery air, which immensely pleased the 
Queen. She sent a gentleman to find out the title of 
the music. He returned with hesitancy, trying his 
utmost to avoid telling Her Majesty the name of the 
piece. He, however, was forced to report, and the 
Sovereign was told that the tune was 'Come Where 
the Booze Is Cheaper!' 

"Universities are happy hunting-grounds for slang- 
isms. A student always goes 'up' to the "Varsity.' 
'Little go' and 'smalls' are the names given respect- 
ively at Cambridge and Oxford to a student's first 
examination. The final exam., on which degrees 
are obtained, is called 'greats' at Oxford, and the 
' great go ' at Cambridge. 

"When a man failed at an exam, he used to say 
that he was ■ plucked ' ; now, however, such an event 
is more frequently referred to as being 'ploughed.' 
The greatest calamity that can befall a student is to 
be 'rusticated,' that is, sent 'down' from the univer- 
sity for a term or for good. 

"A genius for quaint metaphor and a natural pic- 
turesque use of language made American slang 
humorous. Sometimes it is even tinged with poetry. 
Here are a few American slangisms which are be- 
coming at home on this side of the Atlantic. 'Tan- 



324 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

glefoot,' which has the ring of poetry about it, as a 
name for ardent spiiits, is a happy thought. The 
patient labor of the gold washers and the finality 
of its results is very graphically expressed by 'pan 
out,' which is also used to denote a climax. What 
a concrete image is conveyed to the mind by the 
designation 'push buggy/ as compared with our 
meaningless equivalent 'perambulator!' 

"To 'have a hard row to hoe' is said of a person 
who has a difficult undertaking in hand. England 
has become familiarized with 'coon' (a contraction 
of 'raccoon') and 'a gone coon,' the latter signifying 
one in such an 'awful fix' as to be absolutely 'past 
praying for.' Its origin is from the American civil 
war, in which a spy dressed in a raccoon skin hid him- 
self up a tree. A soldier came upon him, and think- 
ing he was a real coon prepared to fire at him with his 
rifle. This was too much for Mr. Spy, who shouted: 
'Don't shoot; I'll come down; I know I'm a gone 
coon.' Thereupon he came to earth, which as it 
were so 'flummuxed' his would-be destroyer that 
the latter at once 'made tracks' from the scene."* 

This meagre sketch of the history of slang is in- 
tended to call attention to its very early beginning; 
to its general characters; to the abundance of meta- 
phors and allegories entering therein; to the nature 
of its varieties; to the absence of metaphor and 
allegory in some of these varieties; to the difference 

* The stoiy has been told of Captain Scott and also of Colonel 
David Crockett. 



SLANG SPEECH 325 

between cant and slang; to the real origin of the so 
called gypsies and of their gibberish; to the perma- 
nency of the rogues' jargon; to the retention of some 
slangs in literary language; and to the evanescence 
of the vast majorities of the slangs used in polite 
society. 

Although Baboo English cannot exactly be placed 
in the category oi slang speech, a specimen, so inter- 
esting and illustrative as the following, furnished by 
one of the Brethren, may well be appended to this 
paper. It is an application for a government position 
by a native who had learned his English at one of 
the schools in India. 

" Respectfully showeth, that your lordship's honour's servant 
is a poor man in agricultural behavior and much depends upon 
seasons for staff of life. 

" Wherefore he prays that you will favor upon him and take 
him into your saintly service, that he may have some permanently 
labor for the support of his soul and of his family. 

" Wherefore he falls on his family's bended knees and implores 
to you of this merciful consideration to a damnable miserable 
like your honour's unfortunate petitioner. 

" That your lordship's honour's servant was so poorly during 
the late rains and was resuscitated by such medicines which made 
magnificent excavations in the coffers of your honorable servant 
whose means are already circumscribed by his large family of 
five female women and three masculine, the last of whom are 
damnably noiseful through pulmonary catastrophe of the in- 
terior abdomen. 

"That your honour's damnable was officiating in several 
capacities during past generations, but has become too much 
old for espousing hard labor in this time of his bodily life, but 
was not drunkful, not thief, nor swindler, nor any of these kind, 
but was always pious and affectionate to his numerous family, 



326 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

consisting of the aforesaid five female women and three mascu- 
line. 

"That your generous lordship's honour's damnable servant 
was entreating magistrate for employment in state to remove 
filth, etc., but was not granted petition. 

" Therefore, your lordship will give me a light work in the de- 
partment for which act of kindness your noble lordship's mean 
servant will, as in duty bound, ever pray for your lordship's 
life's longevity." 



XXI 

THE PLEASURE OF EATING AND THE PLEASURES OF 
THE TABLE 

"Here let us feast, and to the feast be joined 
Discourse, the sweeter banquet of the mind." 

Ye fluent post-prandium orators, whose sweet dis- 
courses and learned comments are so charming to 
the senses and so gladdening to the spirit, you know 
well that without curiosity man would have continued 
to occupy a rank not much above the beast; that had 
he not been a persistent inquirer from childhood, 
social interchange of ideas would have been impossi- 
ble; that the gratification of the irrepressible desire 
to find out the why, what, where, and when of things 
has given him the knowledge which is the foundation 
of the higher intellectual relations and of civilisation; 
and that this same spirit of inquiry leads even the 
thoughtful man of to-day to ask himself why he eats, 
and why he likes to dine in company. It is hoped 
that the definement of these questions will "suffer 
no perdition" in the words that follow. 

We are told by Deipneus Deipnophilus that all 
organized beings must absorb a sufficiency of nutri- 
ment to maintain individual integrity and preserve 
the species; that from the lowest bacteria to the 

327 



328 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

loftiest giants of the forest, from the veriest monads 
to the hugest beasts and to man, the process of nutri- 
tion is carried on by an apparatus whose organs are 
conformable to the needs of each species of plants 
and animals, increasing in complexity from the most 
primitive to the highest types of life; and that plants 
and certain low forms of animals feed, as it were, 
passively, that is to say, from the earth, air, or water, 
absorb their nutriment by a sort of affinitive process, 
while higher forms, as insects, Crustacea, molluscs, 
fish, reptiles, birds, and mammals actively seek and 
select their food; man alone having the faculty of 
preparing his aliments, and civilised man of consum- 
ing them at a well appointed table in congenial 
company. 

This same lover of the good things of the earth says 
that we dine gregariously not only to fortify body and 
mind, but to enjoy the intellectual feast which follows 
the act of eating to appease hunger and gratify the 
senses, because that particular time is a period of 
leisure, of general bodily rest rendered necessary to 
the process of digestion. Instead of lying down in- 
ertly to sleep, like the anaconda gorged with its prey; 
like the ravenous wolf glutted with the remains of one 
of its kind; like the famished Indian of the plains who 
has devoured his half-cooked game; or like the glut- 
tonish boor after a full feed; civilised man ends his 
physical with a mental feast which broadens his hori- 
zon and elevates him far above the brute, the savage, 
and the illiterate. 



THE PLEASURES OF THE TABLE 329 

The deipnosophic Brillat-Savarin very forcibly 
contra-distinguishes feeding and eating as follows: 
" Les animaux se repaissent; I'homme mange; Vhomme 
d 'esprit seul sail manger." 

The high art of dining gregariously, rationally, 
daintily, and soberly, belongs exclusively to men of 
culture; the gratification of their outer senses react- 
ing upon their inner nobler sensibilities and, by the 
incidental converse, rendering them morally and intel- 
lectually edifying to their fellows and to society at 
large. Their labor of eating and the wear-and-tear 
of the masticatory apparatus are fortunately com- 
pensated by the nutritive properties and savor of 
the ingested aliments, by the excellence of the bever- 
ages, and by the pleasure of exchanging ideas during 
and after the refection. 

We get the verb to eat from the Latin edere, equiva- 
lent to the Greek edein. To eat, in German, is essen; 
in Spanish, comer, from comedere, which gives to the 
French the substantive comestible, while their infinitive 
manger is from manducare, to masticate, from which 
the Italians take mangiare, which is generally under- 
stood as masticating and swallowing solid food but, 
strictly, to eat, as applied to the animal creatures, is 
to convey to the mouth and to swallow victuals 
(from vivere, to live), that is to say, solid as well as 
liquid aliments for the purpose of sustaining life. 
But custom has decreed that the ingestion of liquids 
be styled drinking. Wild carnivorous beasts and 
savages eat what and when they can, once a day or 



330 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

once a week, but civilised men are not content with 
less than two daily refections; the principal meal 
being the dinner, from disnare, contracted from 
dis jejuna/re, to break a fast. The Greek substantive 
deipnon seems to have led some writer to invent the 
word dipner, to replace dinner, regardless of the Latin 
derivation of dinner. 

To eat "requires hunger or at least appetite," 
between which there is a wide distinction and a very- 
essential difference; hunger being an imperative need 
of nourishment manifested by a sensation of fatigue 
with more or less epigastric uneasiness,* whereas 
appetite is a desire for any substance likely to gratify 
some of the senses by its form, consistence, color, 
odor, or savor. Hunger and appetite aften coexist, 
but there may be appetite without hunger, or hunger 
without appetite. A hungry man may feed regard- 
less of the quality of aliments and may be concerned 
mainly with their quantity; the taste being a sec- 
ondary consideration. Hunger is appeased by the 
ingestion of a sufficiency of food, but cannot be pro- 
voked or augmented, while appetite may be aroused 
by the sight of dainty edibles or developed by savory 

* Rabelais sketches in very terse style the hungry, thirsty, fam- 
ished man in the person of Panurge, who, when he had first seen 
Pantagruel and had declared his wants in divers foreign tongues, 
to the confusion of his hearers, finally said in plain French: 
. . . "Pour eeste heure, j'ai necessity bien urgente de re- 
paistre; dents agues, ventre vuide, gorge seiche, appetit strident; 
tout y est delibere'." 

"At this hour I have urgent need to feed; teeth sharp, belly 
empty, throat dry, appetite ardent; all is here determined." 

— Book II, Chapter IX. 



THE PLEASURES OF THE TABLE 331 

sauces,* and may be checked or even abolished by 
the diner's view of a gross or of an unsightly dish, 
by his tasting an unsavory morsel, or by anything 
that offends his olfactive sense. Early in the nine- 
teenth century the distinction between hunger and 
appetite was clearly stated as follows: "Depuis que 
V Almanack des Gourmands a paru pour la premiere 
fois (en 1803), on s'est accoutume a etudier, a appro- 
fondir le grand Art de la gueule. On a laisse la faim 
au vulgaire, parce qu'elle est funeste a l'Art, en 
s'accomodant de tout, et Ton s'est reserve l'appetit, qui 
appelle la Science a son secours pour etre stimule.f 

Other deipnologists do not generally make this 
nice distinction, or are inconsistent, as is Brillat- 
Savarin who, in his Physiologie du Gout, says in one 
place, that the pleasure of eating demands, if not 
hunger, at least appetite, while in another he has an 
article with the title of Grands Appetits with illustra- 
tions of voracity rather than appetite proper. (A later 
author quotes Dr. Roques as saying: "Gardez vous 
de confondre l'appetit de l'estomac avec l'appetit 
du palais; le quod sapit nutrit est un chant de sirene 
dont il faut se mefer.") His fifth aphorism is another 
example of this lack of distinction between these two 
conditions: " Le Createur, en obligeant Vhomme a 
manger pour vivre, Vy invite par Vappetit, et Ven recom- 

* The old saying, "appetite comes with eating," probably used 
originally to coax invalids to#take nourishment, is often em- 
ployed ironicly to convey the idea that the more (wealth) some 
men acquire, the more they desire. 

f Almanach des Gourmands, Vol. 8, p. 61. Annie, 1812. 
3ieme edit. 



332 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

pense par le plaisir." To be consistent he should have 
said . . . I'y invite par la faim, ou par l'appetit, 
et Ven recompense par le plaisir. 

Some lexicons make the words appetite and hunger 
synonymous, while they define hunger, substantially, 
as a strong need of food, and appetite as a desire for 
palatable food. Appetite comes directly from the 
Latin appetitus, from appetere, to desire, whereas 
hunger is from the Anglo-Saxon hungor. Skeat says 
it is " probably allied to the Sanskrit kunch, to make 
narrow, contract, kunchana, shrinking;* so that hun- 
ger denotes the feeling of being shrunk together, like 
the provincial English clemmed, literally, pinched, 
used in the phrase clemmed wi' hunger." 

Neither hunger nor appetite requires that the in- 
dividual dine in company, for either can be gratified 
in solitude. The glutton generally likes to satisfy 
his hunger without witnesses, and the deipnolatric 
gourmet prefers to dine daintily alone, for he thinks 
there should be no presence at his feast but the choice 
morsels and himself. 

It is clear that we dine gregariously not merely to 
appease hunger and gratify appetite, but to enjoy the 
pleasures of the table in the most congenial assembly 
in order to exchange views with our fellows, and to 

* In the seventh book of the Odyssey, verses 294-298, Pope's 
tr., Ulysses speaks thus of his famished condition: 
"But still long-wearied nature wants repair, 
Spent with fatigue, and shrunk with pining fast, 
My craving bowels still require repast. 
Necessity demands our daily bread; 
Hunger is insolent, and will be fed." 



THE PLEASURES OF THE TABLE 333 

improve our minds by the absorption of the good that 
comes out of the conversation and of the conviviality. 

To drink is to suck, to draw in and swallow liquid 
aliments. To drink requires thirst or at least a 
desire to taste and ingest pleasant beverages for the 
gratification of the senses* Thirst is manifested by 
a dryness of the mouth and throat and by sensations 
similar to those of hunger. The Anglo-Saxon word 
thurst is traceable to the Sanskrit tarsh, thirst. The 
soif of the French, the sed of the Spanish, and the 
sete of the Italian — all from the Latin sitis — are, like 
the English thirst, expressive of the idea of dryness, 
aridity, combustion; as in the common expression 
"a burning thirst." Many English speaking people 
use the word drouth for thirst, and when thirsty, say 
they are dry. 

The following Anacreontic verses, already quoted, 
are here reproduced because they illustrate so well 
the imperative need of water. 

"The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, 
And drinks and gapes for drink again; 
The plants suck in the earth, and are 
With constant drinking fresh and fair." 

* " L'homme seul, parmi les animaux, a le privilege de boire 

sans soif et de manger sans fain: de la Vivresse et les indigestions." 

— Almanack Perpetuel des Gourmands, 1830. 

This reference to animals clearly relates to the wild beasts, 
for when domesticated they soon learn from their masters to be- 
come fond of dainties and even to drink spirits with relish when- 
ever offered to them. Dogs in particular and pet monkeys eat 
much food of a kind unsuited to their economy and therefore 
harmful, and often ingest strong drink to intoxication. Many of 
the menagerie elephants are allowed daily their drink of beer, 
gin, or whiskey. Even horses become regular "topers." 



334 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Thirst cannot be provoked, but the appetite, the 
desire for drinking may be excited and fostered by 
sipping beverages that are pleasing to the taste or 
by eating sweet or salty dainties. Just as hunger is 
a manifestation of the need of solid aliments, so is 
thirst a sure sign of the need of the liquid aliment water 
of which no less than four pints are daily required 
by the human economy. Nothing but water can 
quench the fire of thirst; this fact is too well estab- 
lished to demand extended commentary, and there 
have been cited almost countless instances exempli- 
fying the much longer endurance of hunger than of 
thirst. Certain beasts do not drink until some time 
after consuming their solid aliments, while men, at 
least the civilised, drink before, during, and after 
meals, not alone to keep up the equilibrium of the 
bodily constituents, not alone to maintain the normal 
seventy per centum of water in the system, but for 
the pleasure, stimulation, and hilarity caused by 
luxurious beverages which, used in moderation, are 
salutary to body and mind. It is only excess in 
tippling, as in other self-indulgences, that harms 
and debases man. The inordinate desire to imbibe 
stimulating liquids, even tea or coffee, is a perverted 
mental process tending to gratify morbid senses. 
Thirst and this longing for strong drink do too often 
coexist, and abundant drinking without thirst is 
rightly classed among the most pernicious of human 
vices. 

In the memorable year of 1861, a well known 



THE PLEASURES OF THE TABLE 335 

gluttonish gourmet — for some guzzlers do love dainty 
bits — after dining sumptuously and imbibing several 
bottles of excellent wines, and after sipping his demie- 
tasse and two petits verres of fine-champagne eau-de-vie, 
said that these delicious beverages had excited in his 
vast economy the strongest desire for "the only sub- 
stantial thirst quencher, the best of all drinks, cold 
water," of which he forthwith gulped a full pint 
with the greatest satisfaction. Another glutton and 
incorrigible wine-bibber had the keenest appetite for 
a large potation of iced-water after he had ingulfed 
seven quart bottles of sparkling champagne wine at 
a noted carousal. 

A glance at the contrast of dinners in the past and 
the present would be of interest to epicures of our 
time, but enough has already been said of the nature 
of the Greek estiama and deipnon, of the Roman 
epulum and caena, and of the gross feeding of the 
Barons in the middle ages. There are still deipno- 
latric gourmets who generally prefer to dine alone 
although they seldom lose the opportunity to enjoy 
savory morsels in company and to gloat over those 
dishes of acknowledged excellence whose apparition 
excites their sensuous appetites in the highest degree, 
and which Brillat-Savarin styles eprouvettes gastro- 
nomiques. 

The following is given in "The Art of Dining" 
(second edit. 1853) as an illustration of positive and 
negative eprouvettes. "Cardinal Fesch, a name of 
honor in the annals of gastronomy, had invited a 



336 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

large party of clerical magnates to dinner. By a 
fortunate coincidence, two turbots of singular beauty 
arrived as presents to his Eminence on the very morn- 
ing of the feast. To serve both would have appeared 
ridiculous, but the Cardinal was anxious to have the 
credit of both. He imparted his embarrassment to 
his chef. 'Be of good faith, your Eminence,' was the 
reply; 'both shall appear; both shall enjoy the re- 
ception which is their due.' The dinner was served: 
one of the turbots relieved the soup. Delight was in 
every face — it was the moment of the eprouvette 
positive. The Maitre d'hdtel advances; two attend- 
ants raise the turbot and carry him off to cut him 
up; but one of them loses his equilibrium: the at- 
tendants and the turbot roll together on the floor. 
At this sad sight the assembled cardinals become pale 
as death, and a solemn silence reigned in the conclave 
— it was the moment of the eprouvette negative; but 
the Maitre d'hdtel suddenly turns to the attendants — 
'Bring another turbot,' said he, with the utmost 
coolness. The second appeared, and the eprouvette 
positive was gloriously renewed." 

In the Almanack Perpetuel des Gourmands, 1830, 
nine years before the death of Cardinal Fesch, the 
story was charmingly told with a clear implication 
but no mention of the word eprouvette. It is here 
reproduced for the delectation of deipnophilists. 

"On citera long-temps la table du Cardinal Fesch. 
Son maitre-d'hotel joignait a des talens pratiques du 
premier ordre, un grandiose d'imagination remar- 



THE PLEASURES OF THE TABLE 337 

quable. Son Eminence recut un jour deux turbots. 
. . . Quels turbots! . . . Celui de Domitien 
n'etait, aupres, qu'une limande. lis arrivaient tout 
a point: ce jour la, meme plusieurs princes de l'Eglise 
devaient diner chez le primat des Gaules. Le Car- 
dinal aurait bien voulu que les deux poissons fissent 
ensemble les honneurs de sa table . . . Quelle 
gloire pour le clerge! mais aussi quelle faute en 
matiere de service! Ce rendez-vous de turbots eut 
paru ridicule. II fait part de son embarras a son 
maitre d'hotel. 'Que Votre Eminence se rassure! 
. . . lis paraitront tous deux, dit-il, et recevront 
raccueil dont ils sont dignes.' 

On sert le diner: l'un des turbots releve le potage. 
Exclamations unanimes, enthousiasme religieux et 
gastronomique. Le maitre-d'hotel s'avance alors; 
deux officiers de bouche s'emparent du monstre et 
l'emportent pour le decouper; mais un d'eux perd 
l'equilibre, l'officier et le turbot roulent ensemble sur 
le parquet. A ce triste spectacle, il fallait voir les 
beates figures se couvrir d'une paleur subite! un 
morne silence regnait dans l'assemblee! quand tout 
a coup le maitre-d'hotel se retourne vers l'office: 
'Qu'on en apporte un autre/ dit-il avec sang-froid. 
. . . L'autre parut, et Ton juge de l'effet!" . . . 

The question as to what aliments should be served 
first at dinner has long been under debate, but the 
disputants disagree only on points of detail; all 
favoring the use of some provocative of, or whet to,, 
appetite — propoma, from propinein, to drink before. 



338 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

The Greeks almost always began with a cup of wine 
or vinegar sweetened with honey, and the Romans 
did likewise but added solid to their liquid whets. 
Thus, for the whet, Horace recommended an egg, and 
Pliny, radishes and snails, while Macrobius, the learned 
author of " Satumaliorum Conviviorum" advocated 
oysters, and we have wisely followed his good ex- 
ample; unnecessarily, however, multiplying our hors 
d'ceuvres by adding caviar, anchovies, sardellen, 
pickles, olives, etc., besides continuing the pernicious 
ancient habit of taking strong drink before eating. 
Would that the ingestion of antepast cocktails, ab- 
synth, vermuth, sherry-and-bitters, and all other 
liquid whets were discountenanced at respectable 
banquets, for these drinks not only fail as whets to 
appetite but their continued use proves injurious to 
the delicate gastric glands besides tending to blunt 
the sensitive nerves of gustation! Dinner is too 
important an event to be marred by unsuitable 
beverages. In a rightly arranged feast with tasteful 
appurtenances and carefully selected congenial guests, 
the eleventh and twelfth aphorisms of Brillat-Savarin 
should be scrupulously adhered to; the order of the 
comestibles, after the whet, being from the most sub- 
stantial to the lightest, and the order of beverages 
from the mildest to the strongest and highest flavored. 
It may be properly added that whenever practicable 
the table should be round and its figureless snow- 
white cloth be sparsely sprinkled with natural flowers 
and leaves; that some artisticly prepared hors 



THE PLEASUKES OF THE TABLE 339 

d'oeuvres and fresh and candied fruit be placed among 
the floral decorations; that no large dishes or even 
entrees appear; that the chairs be without arms; 
that the plate-service be from the simpler to the 
more elaborate in ornamentation; that the wine 
glasses, within proper limits, so varied in form and 
color as to be pleasing to the sight, and be not removed 
until near the close of the feast; that no other recep- 
tacles for fluids be upon the table; that the knives 
and silver implements needed by each guest be placed 
on either side of his plate; that the wishes of the 
diners be always anticipated; and that all the ser- 
vants be dumb. 

A dinner to a company of true lovers of good cheer 
who abide by the golden rules of the Goddess Hygeia 
should begin with a whet of plump, medium sized, 
adolescent oysters opened only five minutes before 
and served in their shells placed upon cracked ice in 
suitable plates — structural disintegration begins so 
soon after oysters are opened that they should be 
consumed with the least possible delay. Not more 
than five should be apportioned to each guest, who 
should ingest them slowly and deliberately and thus 
enjoy their exquisite flavor without such impediments 
as bread, biscuit, or condiment of whatsoever sort. 
Nothing should touch the flesh of this extremely deli- 
cate mollusc after it has received its death blow from 
the oyster-knife, but a tiny, three pronged silver fork 
with which the ostreophagist gracefully conveys it to 
his mouth, when the first bite crushes its fat succulent 



340 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

liver, the scattered particles of which soon diffuse 
the enticing ostrean flavor throughout the buccal 
cavity. After the five delightful sensations there is 
a strong desire for more, but this is not to be gratified 
as it should be remembered that the main object is 
to whet appetite for what is to follow, but, as a diver- 
sion to the aroused nerve filaments of gustation, a 
glass of Rhenish or of Sauterne is taken with the 
desired effect, and in a short time the stomach is in 
proper condition to receive substantial aliments. 

The pleasure of eating begins with the solid whet 
and the vinous propoma and is continuous to the last 
dish and the concluding beverage. The special senses, 
thus gladdened by the savory and nutritious viands 
and delicious wines, the inner sensibilities are in turn 
aroused, and the mental faculties receive additional 
stimulation through fragrant nicotian fumes, the 
tongue becomes more pliant, and the real pleasure of 
the table begins. A torrent of ideas soon rages, and 
wit, humor, erudition, sagacity, flow in such abun- 
dance as to cause a vast flood of individual and col- 
lective pleasure. Such are the reasons why we love 
to dine gregariously! 



DEIPNOPHILIC MISCELLANIES 



"Hear; for I shall speak of excellent things." 



THE DESSERT 

"Un service elegant, d'une ordonnance exacte, 
Doit de notre repas marquer le dernier acte. 
Au secours du dessert appelez tous les arts, 
Surtout celui qui brille au quartier des Lombards." 

These few lines of Berchoux constitute a summary 
of the requisites of the last service of a dinner, and 
are suggestful to all lovers of good things that they 
give a willing ear to what may be said of those sweets 
that gladden vision and gustation, promote digestion, 
and foster conviviality. 

A modern arbiter edendi showed his good taste and 
sound judgment by saying that the dessert, for the 
elaboration of which the gastronomic world is in- 
debted to Italy, is the most brilliant part of any 
feast; its advent being always delightful to dainty 
guests, and precursory to the real pleasure of the table. 
All that has gone before having satisfied gustation, 
the dessert should appeal chiefly to vision, cause sen- 
sations of surprise at, and admiration of, the elegance 
in the service of its sweet dainties, and thus be a fit 
complement to the enjoyment of the repast. That 
it is not a mere relish is attested by the castanian 
aphorism: As appetite is often stimulated by the 
preliminary ingestion of some light food and drink, 

343 



344 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

so is digestion promoted by moderate in^u gence in 
sweets; therefore the dessert is as much a necessity 
as it is a luxury. 

A renowned chestnut-smith asserted that the word, 
though sometimes spelled desert, is in no way related 
to Yuma, Gobi, Sahara, or to other barren regions, 
or to that air on which so much sweetness is wasted, 
or to the deserts of a deserter. Another erudite cas- 
tanist said that it was suggested by the sudden de- 
sertion of all table appurtenances of the prior service; 
whilst a third logomachist regarded dessert as French 
from the Latin deservire, and further said that, by 
a long stretch of logophilic imagination, it might be 
derived from the old English word disservice to ex- 
press the idea of the removal of things no longer 
needed at the table. Finally, the castanist brought 
in evidence the views of Sigmore Anania Boccadolce, 
offirier de bouche to His Serenissime Highness Candito 
Melianto Glicerio Abdiel Shekar, Crown Prince of 
Shekaria. The aforenamed Anania, in his exhausting 
poetico-heroico-historic treatise on the ancient and 
modern ambrosia, speaks of the last course of both 
celestial and terrestrial feasts as having always con- 
sisted of sweet dainties served after the complete 
clearance of the table, and says that all civilised 
nations have long recognised the great worth of this 
indispensable service, and that even the frugal Spar- 
tans, after their common phiditia greatly enjoyed 
the epaiklon of sweetmeats and of meal steeped in 
oil. . . . 



THE DESSERT 345 

It is doubtful if a sumptuary law could have ever 
abolished the service of sweets after dinner. Charles 
IX of France, in his edict forbidding, in any great 
feast, more than three services, did not dare to omit 
the dessert; "Entree, roti, et dessert'' being therein 
specified. The words used by some of the modern 
Latin races to designate the dessert distinctly convey 
the idea of a last course, as the Italian pospdsto, and 
the Spanish postres to signify the last edibles in order, 
such as sweets and fruits. 

In his Essai Didactique sur le Dessert, Perigord 
made an epigrammatic statement which is now quoted 
on account of its extravagance and lack of harmony 
with the sound principles of deipnophily, saying: 
"Here profusion is necessary, economy fatal, and 
superfluity indispensable." This aphorism is not 
likely to be sanctioned by those who believe that while 
parsimony is unpardonable in the dessert following 
an elegant entertainment, wise economy is surely 
commendable, and that moderation may well stand 
against wasteful profusion, but that superfluity is 
never justifiable. 

An old custom, unwarrantable, however, by good 
taste, was the crude and excessive decoration of the 
refectory and of the table. At nearly all state din- 
ners, even less than half a centuiy ago, the table, 
from the beginning of the feast, was crowded with 
flour-paste or plaster models of monuments, or with 
sugar figures of rocks, plants, beasts, and men, be- 
sides lofty pagodas of nougat, pyramids of fruits, 



346 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

and other contrivances that only served to obstruct 
the view of opposite guests and so interfere with the 
exchange of courtesies between friends. These ob- 
jects are now to be seen chiefly in the show windows 
of bakers and confectioners. The simplest table 
decoration with leaves and flowers spread upon the 
white cloth suffice to effect a pleasing visual sensation. 
This happy innovation of the end of the nineteenth 
century is surely an excellent substitution for the 
elaborate, but unartistic, ornamentation previously 
in such great vogue. Electric illumination now ren- 
ders unnecessary the use of those awkward candelabra 
which, like the pikces-montees of old, only encumber 
the table to no good purpose. An attempted revival 
of profuse floral decoration of the room and table 
occurred at a banquet spread in a public establishment 
a few years ago. It is not likely that the example 
will be followed, even by the jeunesse dorm, for in 
that class of the wealthy there are some individuals 
who believe that intellectual ornamentation is the 
richest that can grace convivial reunions. 

In the modern dessert are included delicate sweet 
pastry, jams, jellies, ices, sweet wines, as well as 
cheeses, the soft kinds of which are often eaten with 
jams, or in the form of cakes that are remindful of 
the dainty Syracusan sweet cheese-cakes so often 
consumed and so highly prized in olden times es- 
pecially during the Athenians' epideipnon, at which 
there was no lack of savory fruits and enticing roasted 



THE DESSEET 347 

chestnuts. Then too, among the many luxuries that 
entered into the last course of the Roman cena lau- 
tissima and rich epulum, nuts and figs were ever 
present — "Et nux ornabat mensam cum duplice ficu." 
In the middle ages the so-called four mendicants first 
appeared at the dessert and, in many countries, have 
continued to form the last part of this last service; 
and down to the present time the munching of a few 
nuts is regarded as an essential preliminary to the 
full enjoyment of a glass of old wine. 

The feast could not be more fittingly crowned than 
by a tiny cup of swarthy Arabian nectar with its 
attendant thimbleful of ardent liquor slowly sipped 
to arouse the spirit of loquacity kept within bounds 
by the blissful inhalation of fragrant fumes of the 
nepenthic herb that has ever been the delight of our 
red brothers of the plains to whom we owe a debt 
of lasting gratitude for the wide diffusion of this 
wholesome virtue whose practice long since reached the 
distant Persians to whom is due the old proverb: 
"Coffee without tobacco is meat without salt." 



II 

ANNIVERSARY FEASTS 

"A perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, 
Where no crude surfeit reigns." 

Modern associations of deipnophilists who love 
retrospection are wont to follow the ancient custom 
of celebrating the birth of their organisations by 
splendid refections moistened with luscious wines, 
by orations, by song, by the recitation of poems, and 
by dissertations on gastronomy and allied subjects. 
On one of these occasions a member who had been 
requested to prepare an address in commemoration 
of the Club's earliest acts, read the following sketch 
with an epigraph borrowed from Saint Paul: "To the 
Greeks and to the Barbarians, to the wise and to the 
unwise I am a debtor." 

Antiquarian researches into the alimentary his- 
tory and periodical deipnophilic celebrations of the 
Chinese, Hindoos, Chaldeans, Arabians, Hebrews, 
Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, early Christians, and 
Mohammedans, have led to the inevitable conclusion 
that these veiy modern peoples and sects had learned, 
only by tradition, of the custom of anniversary cele- 
brations among their remotest predecessors, and that 
the first feast in commemoration of a great event 

348 



ANNIVERSARY FEASTS 349 

was given by a father whose only son had been pre- 
served from impending death. There is indubitable 
proof, he said, that the worthy sire of the lad who 
discovered the use of fire and invented cookery did, 
at the expiration of twelve moons, commemorate, 
by thanks-giving to the Great Spirit, by parley, by 
song, and by dance, the miraculous escape of his son 
and heir from incineration during the conflagration 
which had resulted from woody friction in the hands 
of this forward child of the soil, who involuntarily 
converted a fat ruminant beast into very palatable 
roast beef and thus unwittingly instituted the feast 
now known as a barbecue. On that anniversary 
day the fond parent did cause to be served at his 
bountiful board, for the delectation of his family and 
friends, the choicest viands, with parched chestnuts 
galore, such as truffled bustards, venison steaks with 
broiled mushrooms, all washed down by lashings of 
cocoanut milk then regarded as sufficient to appease 
man's longing for fluidity. . . . 

Let us now ascend by easy gradations from the 
fanciful to the real, from the grotesque to the sublime. 
Our confraternity was organised to afford diversion 
to men whose labors are of such a nature as to permit 
little relaxation, but who can spare one evening each 
month to interchange ideas and further good-fellow- 
ship; excluding those individuals who can neither 
make nor take a joke, who fail to distinguish the 
ludicrous from the serious, the gay from the grave, 
the witty from the dull, the humorous from the prosy. 



350 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Our main objects have been and still are, the further- 
ance of hygienic gastronomy and of conviviality, 
and the cultivation of literary, scientific, and classical 
lore. Our members have been wont, in satiric spirit, 
to use long, composite, hybrid, and obsolete words 
for purposes of illustration. Some of their essays 
were intended to correct imperfections in the language 
of science, and to expose literary blunders and " scien- 
tific frauds"; always, however, with a suitable ad- 
mixture of gravity, pleasantry, wit, and drollery. . . . 
A distinguished explorer vouches for the serious- 
ness of the Esquimaux; an eminent physiologist as- 
serts that savages neither laugh nor weep; and an 
illustrious psychologist declares that, among civilised 
men, the lack of receptivity of pleasantry, the in- 
ability to give expression to jollity, and the incapacity 
of appreciating the comical side of a question consti- 
tute a real atavistic mental sluggishness intensified 
by disordered digestion. The following is a fair 
example. A young gentleman, with more scholar- 
ship than sense of humor, strolling with a friend, took 
au grand serieux and denounced as inflated pedantry 
the drollery of his companion's characterisation of a 
certain beautiful woman in these terms, which he con- 
fessed were not original: "The atoms momentarily 
associated to compose this creature present a combi- 
nation which is agreeable to the eye." 

The lamented Joe, or some other Milleric moralist, 
has uttered the following profound apothegm: 



ANNIVERSARY FEASTS 351 

"The gravest beast is an ass; 
The gravest bird is an owl; 
The gravest fish, an oyster; 
The gravest man, a fool." 

Wit has been denned as the vivacious utterance of 
congruous ideas so combined as to please and surprise. 
And also as "the keen perception and apt expression 
of those connections between ideas which awaken 
pleasure and especially amusement." Crabb regards 
wit in the light of a genus to which he accords three 
species, humor, satyre, and irony. Wit, he says, 
"like wisdom, according to its original, from wissen, 
to know, signifies knowledge, but it has so extended 
its meaning as to signify that faculty of the mind 
by which knowledge or truth is perceived, and in a 
more limited sense the faculty of discovering the agree- 
ments or disagreements of different ideas. Wit, in 
this latter sense, is properly a spontaneous faculty, 
and is, as it were, a natural gift. . . . Reflection 
and experience supply us with wisdom; study and 
labor supply us with learning; but wit seizes with an 
eagle eye that which escapes the notice of the deep 
thinker, and elicits truths which are in vain sought 
for with any severe effort." Humor, he further says, 
"is a species of wit which flows out of the humor of a 
person. Wit, as distinguished from humor, may 
consist of a single brilliant thought : but humor runs 
in a vein; it is not a striking, but an equable and 
pleasing flow of wit. . . . Humor may likewise 
display itself in actions as well as words, whereby it 



352 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

is more strikingly distinguished from wit which dis- 
plays itself only in the happy expression of happy 
thoughts. 

Irony and sarcasm are scarcely tolerable among 
friends. "A true sarcasm," said Sydney Smith, "is 
like a sword-stick; it appears at first sight to be much 
more innocent than it really is, till, all of a sudden, 
there leaps something out of it — sharp and deadly, 
and incisive — which makes you tremble and recoil." 



In the beginning of every new year it is profitable 
and pleasant to look backward and take account of 
the occurrences of the expired year in order to be 
guided in future plans of action. Such retrospection 
scarcely ever fails to be helpful in the realisation of 
the most exalted prospection. Annual inquiries into 
the proceedings of this confraternity, during and after 
its mensual agapae, have done much to increase its 
interest and will doubtless serve to perpetuate its 
usefulness. Its general character is unchanged; the 
reunions being still typified by a happy commixture 
of reason and pleasure and wisdom and mirth, by 
sweet discourses, and by the exquisite enjoyment of 
dainty aliments, fragrant beverages, and the nepen- 
thic fumes of the sacred herb. 

In our convivial reunions we have generally followed 
in spirit though not always in letter, the wise sugges- 
tions of the learned Varro who wrote so well on social 
assemblies and who said of the guests that they should 



ANNIVERSARY FEASTS 353 

be at least of the number of the graces but never ex- 
ceed that of the muses. . . . Although at our 
last reunion we did not exceed the prescribed nine, 
the brotherhood has often more than doubled that 
number without inconvenience, partly owing to the 
use of an ample refectory with vast round table and 
comfortable chairs in the most marked contrast to 
the fittings of the ancient triclinium. . . . The 
feast, said the astute Roman, will be perfect through 
the union of these four conditions : the guests rightly 
chosen; the place suitable; the time opportune; and 
the repast prepared with care. The diners, he further 
said, should be neither too loquacious nor dumb; 
eloquence belonging to the senate, and silence to the 
study; adding that conversations should not be on 
intricate questions but on entertaining subjects en- 
nobling to the mind. He might also have said that 
the matter of after-dinner discourses should not be 
indifferent but always useful, agreeable, and delivered 
in simple, pleasing style. 

It is delightful to think that mental and proper 
sensual cultivation, and moderation in the use of ali- 
ments have been, are, and are likely to be always the 
most prominent features in our mensual gatherings, 
and that in these we can never do better than to con- 
tinue to follow the sapient dicta of Varro, and the 
admirable maxim of the later philosopher, who said: 

"The mind shall banquet though the body pine: 
Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits 
Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits." 



354 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

In the spirit of these sage precepts, do each of you 
bring into play both cogitative and nutritive appara- 
tus during our feasts designed as much for your intel- 
lectual as for your physical well being. Since, like 
the rest of mankind, you live to think and dine to 
live, do, for mental aliment, invoke the aid of the lov- 
ing Mnemosyne and at least two of her fair daughters, 
besides the genii of science, art, letters, and numbers; 
for bodily sustenance, pay due devotion to bountiful 
Gasterea, the tenth muse; and for avoidance of Bac- 
chic and other excesses, be obedient to the wise 
Hygeia. Your discourses, characterised as they have 
always been, by rigorous exactitude in expression and 
Attic elegance in diction, will ever be gustfully sea- 
soned with the purest intellectual salt, and your 
sensual appetites will as surely be under the restraint 
of your determined volition. 



Ill 

DINING CLUBS 

"Au premier age . . . 
L'homme eut pour lois ses grossiers appetits." 

The first dining club was formed in Elysium, but, 
after the earth had cooled, was transferred to Mount 
Olympus where Castanopolis was built in the center 
of a vast forest of chestnut trees which Ceres caused 
to spring up and bear a great abundance of marrons 
already glaces for the special delectation of the God- 
desses. 

The Gods then granted to Grecian men, as a reward 
for their great piety, sufficient land to build the sacred 
city, and a charter for the club, with authorisation to 
establish a branch in the future city of Nea Castana 
to be erected on a distant continent to be discovered. 

There have been so many simulations of the origi- 
nal Club and of its Nea Castana branch, that it is 
meet to inquire into their inception and purposes. 
Hence the following faint introductory tracery of their 
general characters, which leaves many lacunae to be 
filled. 

The earliest mimicry of the Elysian Club bears no 
definite date as to month of the year, day of the week, 
or hour of the day, but occurred some time before 

355 



356 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

noon tide, about one thousand eight hundred and 
ninety-seven centuries ago, when three anthropoid 
creatures assembled, for a picnic and cosy chatter, 
in the shade of a cocoanut grove, each provided with 
a sufficiency of bananas. While enjoying the luscious 
fruit they were startled by the dropping of a nut upon 
the trunk of a near-by fallen tree. Turning, to see 
what had happened, they found that the nut had 
rolled out of its fibrous envelope, and contrived to 
break it open, when they soon learned that it contained 
both meat and drink, and at once climbed the parent 
tree to gather the newly discovered aliment which 
did so much more for the happiness of simiankind 
than the subsequent discovery of hosts of double 
stars. After several gastronomic reunions, they in- 
creased their coterie by selecting, with special care 
and unanimous consent, six congenial new members, 
making the nine prescribed by their aping emules the 
Romans, and the club, thus enlarged, met daily for 
refection. Simian cocoanut clubs then increased and 
multiplied and are still flourishing in jungle and 
forest, although many of their proceedings are still 
inedited. 

The second mimicry was by some distant relatives, 
in ascending scale, of the progeny of the first nine. 
These new comers were the pithecanthropoi who, hav- 
ing witnessed cocoanut feasts from a respectful dis- 
tance, profited by the experience and added these 
and other nuts to their own daily rations, and estab- 
lished clubs of nine for the purpose of nut cracking 



DINING CLUBS 357 

and for the cultivation of the expression of thought 
by gestures, from which was evolved the sign language 
of deaf mutes. They were the progenitors of the 
tribe of casse-noisettes so well pictured by the literary 
artist Honore de Balzac. 

The third mimicry arose many ages after the 
pithecanthropic era when a higher type of beings was 
evolved. The new race then strove to improve on 
the ways and the meager dietary of their seventh 
cousins the pithecanthropoi. Their first essays at 
talking were made during feeding time when they en- 
deavored to give names to some of those edible sub- 
stances which nourished and were pleasing to the 
taste, chiefly bananas, cocoanuts, mushrooms, small 
nuts, and a few of the sweet fruits. Very slow pro- 
gress was made by them toward the acquirement of 
the difficult art of rightly naming things, and their 
ascendants to the present time are by no means far 
advanced in the practice of this precious art. During 
the time devoted to refection and conversation, all 
nine were squatted on the ground in a circle in the 
center of which the food was placed; each helping 
himself, for they had no pampered servitors. Such 
was the beginning of the evolution of the round table 
whose knights afterward exceeded in number the 
original chimpanzic nine, and such was the beginning 
of the evolution of those after-dinner orations, puns, 
jests, and Milleric chestnuts with which even grave 
statesmen have endeavored to entertain good hum- 
ored guests at modern banquets. 



358 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

The fourth mimicry of the celestial club was by the 
discoverer of the properties of sour-juiced fruits. He 
was the chief of a powerful troglodytic clan, and the 
organiser of the first Amlarasa * club where the dain- 
ties of each season were so greatly enjoyed. Hors 
d'ceuvres of sour pickles of fruit, fish, and flesh orna- 
mented his vast marble slabs and were thereon con- 
sumed with much relish as promoters of appetite and 
digestion. The parle during each meal was chiefly on 
the divers aliments served, and on the best way to 
render them pleasing to the taste. . . . The 
discovery of one of the sweetest condiments was 
made by a sporting member who had a slight mis- 
understanding with a four-footed creature in the 
neighborhood of a swarm of bees. The question of 
proprietorship of the hive was promptly and defi- 
nitely settled by the aforenamed member, and bear- 
steak was served at the next day's refection, and 
honey-comb answered for the dessert. 

Such were the four prehistoric mimicries of the 
Olympian dining club. 

Nothing noteworthy was gathered respecting the 
early nomadic tribes of featherless bipeds who had no 
time or inclination for conviviality and good-fellow- 
ship. So the mimicries that followed the fourth are 
only traceable to the Babylonians, Medes, Persians, 
and Hindoos, all of whose clubs were but poor simu- 
lations of the celestial institution. 

* The Sanskrit word for sour juice. 



DINING CLUBS 359 

The phiditia of the Spartans bore no resemblance 
whatsoever to the feasts of the Olympic club. That 
stolid people had not the extreme felicity of knowing 
the tenth muse Gasterea, and cared not to observe 
the reverence paid to the other nine Goddesses by 
their simian ancestors, but were content to swill the 
nauseous black broth, devour boiled pork, and gulp 
the epaicla while talking politics and athletics. Even 
long afterward, when they became as luxurious as 
Spartans could be, they were never gourmets in spirit 
or action. The refined Athenians, however, were 
strict observers of the amenities of the refectory, for 
during the deipnon, which was furnished with daintily 
prepared aliments, they regaled their guests with 
vocal and instrumental music, and devoted a great 
part of the time to entertaining conversation and to 
the embellishment of their purest of tongues, particu- 
larly from the period of the honey-mouthed Pericles, 
and after Archestratus had so greatly helped in the 
improvement of their dietary, and shown them that 
the real pleasure of eating could only be enjoyed 
through the right exercise of their senses. At the 
Athenian dinner coteries, original poems were recited 
by rhapsodic members selected for the purpose; then 
roasted chestnuts galore were consumed while many 
of the old and new jests of the noted sixty of Diomea 
were enacted or told. . . . 

Although Cicero and a few congenial spirits were 
wont to meet socially in confraternity for refection 
and conversation, other Romans, who spent so much 



360 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

time at the baths, had no clubs of nine except at their 
orgies in stuffy triclinia, and were devoid of the Athe- 
nian appreciation of roasted chestnuts, logomachies, 
clever jests, and good-fellowship. . . . The mili- 
tant Caesar, the gross feeder Brutus, the sour dyspep- 
tic Cassius, the deboshed voluptuary Antony, the 
good-natured weak Lepidus, the sedentary, high-liver, 
gouty, Setine wine drinker Augustus, were all dis- 
qualified for true epicurism. Hence it is that deip- 
nophilic clubs were not fashionable Roman institu- 
tions in their time. But Maecenas, Horace, and his 
dearly beloved Virgil, had all the needed attributes 
and could have formed a splendid permanent coterie 
at the Sabine farm where its meetings would have 
been enlivened by the sweetest discourse and the 
richest poesy inspired by the mellow juice of Falernian 
grapes. 

In his description of Trimalchio's feast, Petronius 
gave a not much overdrawn portraiture of Romans in 
their entertainments during the time of the brutal 
Nero and even later when excess, debauchery, and 
profligacy continued until the fall of the empire. . . 

The individuals of the succeeding nation though 
milder mannered than their truculent predecessors, 
do not appear to possess the sacred fire of true deip- 
nophilists. . . . Polenta, spaghetti, and Par- 
mesan cheese, apparently content their gustation; 
and their digestion is promoted by Chianti and other 
Tuscan wines which inspire song but do not seem to 



DUSTING CLUBS 361 

foster that sort of post-prandium merriment such as 
the wines of Gallia induce among the natives of that 
happy land of the troubadours. A few examples of 
Gallic conviviality and good-fellowship may not be 
without interest. 

While at the convent of Fontenay-le-comte, the 
facetious Chinonian Francois Rabelais formed a 
coterie of three for the secret study of the tongues of 
antiquity and of astronomy, besides fun and frolic; 
all of which got him and his fellows into no little 
trouble as attested by his biographer who, in speaking 
of the chief object of their reunions, said: 

"II s'etait forme dans ce couvent un petit noyau 
d'erudits qui n'etait pas sans importance. ... II 
se composait de Pierre Amy, de Rabelais, et d'un 
autre moine qu'on nommait Phinetos. lis etu- 
diaient passionnement l'antiquite grecque et latine. 
lis acquirent en outre des connaissances 
astronomiques." . . . 

They soon increased their coterie by the association 
of several notabilities of the town, amongst whom 
were the distinguished lawyer Jean Brisson, and the 
eminent Judge Andre Tiraqueau, and later, had, as a 
powerful adherent, the erudite hellenist Guillaume 
Budee. The great learning of the three friends to- 
gether with their very frequent carousals, caused 
them to be expelled from the convent by the intoler- 
ant monks, so the master spirits of the enlarged coterie 
being scattered, the club went out of existence. 

Another oinophilic coterie, but of much shorter life, 



362 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

is worthy of special mention. It began and ended 
"on the occasion of a Duke of Clarence's visit to Milan 
to marry the daughter of Galeas II. . . . Thither 
came Froissart, Chaucer, and Petrarca, by one of 
those chance dispositions of fortune which seem the 
result of a provident foresight, and the triple genius 
of French, English, and Italian literature had presided 
over their reunion. It was a literary congress of 
which the consequences are felt to the present day, 
in the common agreement of international feeling 
in the grand federal republic of letters." (Father 
Prout.) The three poets never met afterward. . . . 
In those early times there were throughout France 
many little literary coteries where interesting ques- 
tions were discussed, lively songs intoned, delicate 
aliments enjoyed, and much good wine imbibed. It 
was not, however, until the beginning of the eigh- 
teenth century that regular dining clubs were formed, 
in Paris, under the title of Academies Chantantes, 
wherein letters, vocal music, and wine were cultivated 
at monthly dinners. These academies generally held 
their sessions in the cellar of some inn, from which 
circumstance one of them adopted the simple title 
of Caveau. The members of the Caveau were men of 
the highest distinction, and represented the liberal 
professions. The founders added to the membership 
of this first Caveau such celebrities as Duclos the his- 
torian, Gentil-Bernard, Helvetius the philosopher, 
Boucher the painter, Rameau the musician, and 
Favart the dramatist. Among the occasional guests 



DINING CLUBS 363 

were the learned philologist Freret, and Maurepas, 
the clever writer of epigrammes and songs. This 
Club, formed in 1729 and closed in 1739, was after- 
ward known as VAncien Caveau. 

A second Caveau was instituted, in the year 1759, 
by the eminent literateur Marmontel, the statesman 
Boissy, and by Suard and Lanoue, who associated 
with them the younger Crebillon, Helvetius, Bernard, 
the renowned chansonnier Colle, and other celebrities. 
Some of their foreign guests were Sterne, Garrick, 
and Wilkes. This second Caveau came to an end in 
a few years. 

The Diners du Vaudeville were established in 1796. 
Among the members of that coterie were the most 
gifted men of the time. Records of their discourses 
and songs were carefully made and printed in nine 
small volumes. This club was reorganised under the 
chairmanship of the clever and witty Desaugiers and, 
in 1806, became the Caveau Moderne. Among its 
leading spirits were Armand Gouffe and the bibliopole 
Capelle who gathered all the monthly speeches and 
songs of the gay company which he published an- 
nually. The dinners were served in divers places, but 
chiefly at Baleine's celebrated restaurant, the Rocher 
de Cancale, noted for the excellence of its oysters. 
These mensual feasts of mind and body were delight- 
fully conducted by the charming songster Desaugiers, 
aided by his coterie of friends and able men, not the 
least of whom was Grimod de la Reyniere, author of 
the Almanack des Gourmands. It was there, in 1813, 



364 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

that Beranger appeared first, as a guest of Desaugier, 
and sang several songs of his own composition, among 
them the Roi d'Yvetdt, which created a profound sen- 
sation and was the nucleus of his great celebrity as 
chansonnier and poet. This Caveau Moderne ceased 
to exist in 1817, but its proceedings were afterward 
printed in eleven 18mo volumes. 

Les Soupers de Momus was the next deipnophilic 
club and was really contemporaneous of the Caveau 
but lasted longer. The feasts were held at Beauvil- 
lier's, a famous restaurant of the time. There, also, 
many songs were sung and the orations were not few. 
The organisation ended in 1828, after a life of fifteen 
years and the publication of fifteen volumes of its 
proceedings. 

Those clubs, although facetiously styled Academies 
chantantes, were truly important centers of high in- 
tellectuality, of letters, and of art. It is fortunate 
for the modern Athens that their spirit has not van- 
ished, and that there are still many of the same sort in 
the capital and in the provinces; sometimes bearing 
quaint names. One of them, in the South, is called 
La Tomate. This cognomen suggests that the love- 
apple is much prized by the members, and that it is 
an aliment oblige at all their monthly gatherings. 

Collegians in that part of France have long been 
wont to celebrate certain events by such banquets as 
their moderate means permit ; the feasts being mostly 
of the mind, and their sallies and songs being inspired 
less by the beverages than by the seasoning of their 



DINING CLUBS 365 

aliments which is effected through the free use of a 
sauce that consists chiefly of an oily emulsion of garlic 
known as Vayoli, which would scarcely be flattering 
to the gustation of modern Anglo-Saxon epicures. 

Mental diversion has ever been regarded as essen- 
tial to the felicity of all kinds of human creatures, 
and to peace and good will. The wail of the Roman 
people in distress of body was not alone for bread; 
they wanted something more, hence the cry, partem 
et cir -censes. After some sad experiences the French 
realised that bread alone is sufficient for the body 
only, and that the mind of the plain people of great 
cities needs such aliments as are likely to divert and 
content it. Music was among the divers amusements 
suggested to effect these wise purposes, and several 
public spirited men were ready to carry out the design. 
The pioneer was Wilhelm, the life-long dear friend of 
Beranger. Then followed the gifted ballad writer 
Debraux, who sang his own songs in coteries styled 
goguettes held in the streets and in wine shops. Be- 
ranger, who had a very high appreciation of the young 
poet, said of him: 

" Debraux, dix ans, regna sur la goguette, 
Mit l'orgue en train et les choeurs des faubourgs, 
En roulant, roi, de guinguette en guinguette, 
Du pauvre peuple il chanta les amours." 

England also had and still has many deipnophilic 
clubs; the first being ''La Court de Bone Compagnie/' 
which existed as early as the reign of Henry IV. 



366 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Among the most celebrated of later dining clubs were 
"The Brothers," succeeded by the noted Scribblerus 
Club of Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot, Bolingbroke, and 
other notabilities. In the following century there 
sprang up another admirable deipnophilists' coterie 
of eminent lettered men who met at Ambrose's tavern 
under the leadership of Professor Wilson, so well and 
so favorably known as Christopher North, who pub- 
lished its transactions, as everybody knows, under the 
title of Noctes Ambrosianae in mimicry of the Noctes 
Olympianae. 

In speaking of dining clubs of Great Britain and 
Ireland, it would be unpardonable to omit mention of 
the never-to-be-forgotten carousal of the learned and 
saintly Father Andrew Prout with the sacred nine at 
his simple but so heartily hospitable board, and among 
these nine worthies, of the presence of the dear, good, 
jovial Sir Walter Scott, who contributed so much 
pleasing erudition mingled with such genuine humor, 
between the melodies intoned by, and the many dis- 
courses of the other clever and witty guests; all being 
the creation of Oliver Yorke's inventive and fertile 
mind. Nor should be forgotten those occasional 
convivial reunions of such eminent men of letters as 
Maginn, Frazer, Lockhart, Theodore Hook, Ains- 
worth, Thackeray, Southey, Mahoney, D'Orsay, and 
other bright lights of modern literature. The efful- 
gence of those convocations was truly characteristic 
of the great lettered men of the first half of the nine- 
teenth century, who displayed their wit to the best ad- 



DINING CLUBS 367 

vantage at the festal board. A passing reference 
should also be made to Ferguson's comic portraiture 
of the Reverend Thomas Maguire the eloquent 
alumnus of Maynooth college, who is described as 
making a night of it at the Vatican while paying his 
-respects to the Holy Father and discoursing learnedly 
on the ancient tongues, theology, metaphysics, logic, 
mathematics, gastronomy, milk posset, punch, and 
tobacco. The greatest satire since the appearance 
of the extraordinary production of the Cure de 
Meudon. . . . 

In America, very many dining clubs have flour- 
ished during the nineteenth century under divers 
names. Their membership was almost invariably 
derived from men of letters, science and art. The 
earliest of these clubs consisted of historians, novelists, 
poets, artists, and physicians, who, once each month, 
dined, wined, chatted, and spent many joyful hours 
together. There are now several excellent gastro- 
nomic coteries in Nea Castana whose proceedings are 
similar to those of the original Olympian Club. The 
fraternity of each of these clubs will doubtless fill the 
many gaps, left wide open, relating to the existence 
and ceremonies of such clubs in the lands of caviare 
and vodka; of sourkrout, pumpernickel, and beer; 
of ducks, turnips, cabbage sprouts, and schnapps; 
of olla podrida, gazpacho, and val de penas; of rice 
and sake; of beans and sam shoo; of couscous and 
palm spirit; besides many other terrestrial regions 
where may have flourished, or are still in existence, 



368 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

any institutions bearing the slightest resemblance to 
the Olympic Club. 

The study needed to prepare this sketch, of the his- 
tory of ancient and modern dining clubs has led to a 
conclusion similar to that reached by the sages of the 
remotest antiquity and told in such simple yet very 
forcible style by the Ecclesiast: "The thing that hath 
been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done 
is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing 
under the sun." 



IV 

TABLE JESTS 
"Learn to laugh at things without offence to men." 

This essay was read at the close of a dinner given by 
men of letters and science, and was suggested by 
Deipneus Deipnophilus that true lover of good cheer, 
generous wines, melodious music, pretty women, 
fragrant tobacco, old books, droll stories, and jolly 
fellows. The paper should bear the title notes on 
some mental vagaries and on chestnuts gathered 
from the most prolific trees in the blooming groves 
of Miller, Lemon, Fenn, Twain, Wheatley, and other 
notorious castaniculturists at home and abroad. 

"To err is feminine, 
To blunder masculine." 

These notations are intended for the diversion of 
junior amateurs of post-prandium humorous stories. 
Experienced exegetists are agreed that there are no 
new stories, but infinite varieties and sub-varieties of 
these mental vagaries, many of which date from the 
earliest period of human conviviality. It is truly 
refreshing to hear an exegetical tyro gravely give out 
a Joe Miller as a new story which he had learned per- 
haps only the day before! ... It was formerly 

369 



370 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

the custom in the wardroom of American warships for 
the officers to listen patiently to a new-comer's after- 
dinner story and then for the whole mess to applaud, 
by the clapping of hands, and by loud hear! hear! 
with interjections of J. M., to the confusion of the 
neophyte whose consequent rising anger filled him 
with a savage desire for revenge, which, however, 
would soon be calmed by the reflection that he could 
not very safely challenge all of his ten or twelve jeering 
fellow-officers. In despair of obtaining satisfaction 
and in fear of further ridicule he would, at length, 
consent to listen to one of his elder's statement to 
the effect that his story was very old, that it was not 
anecdotal, since it had long before appeared in print; 
that there were no new stories, and, moreover, it 
was the invariable rule of the mess that the narrator 
begin by giving the pedigree of his first jest. He 
would then see that the performance was only a part 
of his initiation to the ancient guild of stoiy tellers, 
and gracefully accept the situation. . . . 

A commonly told story is to the effect that an 
American gentleman, who bore a close resemblance 
to the reigning monarch, being on a mission to the 
French court, was asked by the King if his mother 
had ever been in France. No, replied the American, 
but my father has. This is a veritable Joe Miller; 
only the names and countries being changed. From 
what original did Joe Miller get No. 103 in the edition 
of 1739? It is supposed to have come from Francis 
Bacon, who gets it from X who learned it from XX 



TABLE JESTS 371 

and so on to the first lost in memory's mists. This 
No. 103 of Joe Miller is as follows: "The Emperor 
Augustus being shown a young Grecian who very 
much resembled him, asked the young man if his 
mother had not been at Rome. No, answered the 
Grecian, but my father has." There is no end to 
such transformations which constitute the many 
varieties and even sub-varieties of tales from, and 
perhaps anterior to, the distant time of Aristodemus' 
catalogue of jests. . . . 

Before going any farther, it may be proper to make 
mention of a suggestion toward tracing the origin 
of the popular slang term chestnut as applied to often 
repeated tales. The rising generation of exegetists 
knows little of the departed comic actor Joseph 
Miller, who was never known to be merry or to be in 
funds, and who could neither read nor write, but under 
whose name in 1739 John Mottley published The 
Wits' Vade Mecum to secure a small sum of money 
for the penniless Miller family bereft of its impecunious 
head. Since the Wits' Vade Mecum does not give 
the derivation of the expression a chestnut as applied 
to the repetition of an old tale, it was necessary to 
invoke the aid of an aged pandit who offered the 
following: "In the old Chestnut Street Theatre there 
were what are now called variety shows during which, 
night after night for months or even for years, the 
same stories were told so that they became familiar 
to every boy in the town. When, perchance, such a 
stoiy was related by a guileless parent, the children, 



372 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

in loud chorus, chanted — Chestnut Street story, 
chestnut story, and finally for brevity, chestnut. 
This is likely to bring out some other form in which the 
idea of repetition of old tales may have been expressed 
many ages ago. 

Here may be a proper place to insert the Columbian 
egg stoiy, which was an old chestnut in the time of 
Columbus, and there is no proof whatever that he 
tried the experiment. Had he done so, it is likely 
that he would have succeeded in making the egg 
stand on end without cracking the shell, as he was 
alleged to have done. The original chestnut was 
related of Philippo Brunelleschi who lived more than 
fifty years before Columbus* That architect had 
conceived the idea of a plan for raising the cupola of 
the church of Santa Maria del Fiori and had declined 
to make known publicly the details of this plan. 
Some of his Florentine friends jestingly urged him 
to divulge his secret while gaily chatting, toward the 
close of a feast at the service of salad and hard boiled 
eggs. To escape from the embarrassment thus 
caused, he took one of the eggs and asked his com- 
panions to do likewise and try to make them stand. 
They all failed, but he cracked slightly the shell and 
his egg stood. "Now," said he, "that I have shown 
you how, you will all be able to do as I have." Had 
he thought a little more at that time of the centre of 

* See Tarducci's Life of Columbus. 

In the capitolat Washington may be seen an "historical" 
painting intended to represent Columbus in the act of making an 
egg stand by force, and thus soiling the table linen! 



TABLE JESTS 373 

gravity, he would surely have made the egg stand 
without cracking the shell, a thing which any light 
fingered person, or a child, can do, and which you will 
proceed to effect as others have done on many oc- 
casions.* . . . 

A few exegetical maxims may here be permitted, 
as designed for the edification of junior members of 
the worshipful guild of post-prandium exegetists who 
should not lose sight of the following old saw : 

" A raUlerie sans offence, 
II faut esprit et science. " 

This short adage tells more than is apparent at 
first sight. It is a protest against personalities and 
other improprieties in jests; it suggests that the 
truly witty and humorous should not contain any- 
thing offensive or shocking to the sensibilities of 
refined persons; and it implies intellect and learning 
hedged by a dignity which represses both triviality 
and coarseness. Some of the great wits of past 
times were among profound and reverend scholars 
who invariably regarded personalities, practical jokes, 
and unseemingly bantering as puerile and vulgar 
perversions of intellect, as contrary to legitimate wit 
and humor, and as neither instructive nor entertain- 
ing. . . . 

" Immodest words admit of no defense, 
For want of decency is want of sense." 

* A number of fresh, uncooked eggs were brought in and nearly 
all the diners were able to make the eggs stand without cracking 
the shells, and some of them were stood first on the large end and 
then on the small end. 



374 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

1. A good story loses much by being too brief or 
unduly compressed, but, on the other hand, too great 
expansion, too much circumstance, particularly after 
the manner of Sancho Panza, makes it excessively 
tedious; therefore either extreme method should be 
avoided. 

2. An excellent story has little if any effect when 
told in an indifferent manner, whilst a commonplace 
tale related with art and with suitable embellishments 
is almost always gleefully received. 

3. The same story may be told in many varying 
ways and be thus repeated much to the diversion of 
the hearers; the expression, intonation, accentuation, 
gestures, all contributing to the happy climax. 

4. A good old story, well told with humorous em- 
bellishments, may be called a marron glace. 

5. A variety of an old story, with alterations in 
time, place, names, and incidents, may properly be 
styled a marron deguise. 

6. An ordinary ancient story, not too hackneyed, 
is a plain chestnut, chataigne. 

7. A poor old pointless story carelessly told is only 
a diminutive, wormy chincapin, dwarf chestnut, 
chataigne naine vereuse. 

8. An ancient bull is ahorse-chestnut, marron d'Inde. 

9. The story teller should possess sufficient skill to 
avoid the use of any language likely to shock the 
auditive sense of the most refined persons. Coarse, 
lewd, and vulgar stories are never interesting or even 
amusing; therefore " sint sales sine vilitate." 



TABLE JESTS 375 

10. It is almost needless to say that a story should 
always be pertinent to the occasion, illustrative of 
whatever proper subject may have been introduced, 
or suggested by a tale told by an immediate or perhaps 
a remote predecessor; otherwise, even if good, it is 
not likely to be effective. 

"Entre les verres et les pots 
Ne se disent que bons propos." 

11. Stories that are not aptly satirical, suggestive 
of human foibles, or parodical of current events, are 
scarcely worth telling in the company of cultured 
men. 

12. A good narrator does not laugh when telling 
a tale. 

13. All mental vagaries are not necessarily ex- 
pressed in the form of stories, nor are all stories mental 
vagaries, but the vast majorities of humorous stories 
are true mental vagaries demanding a full play of wit, 
fancy, imagination, and invention, together with a 
keen perception of the ridiculous. Some mental 
vagaries are expressed in short jests, in puns and their 
allies, conundrums, in charades, in enigmas, etc. 
These jests are the least amusing, the most uninter- 
esting, and the lowest forms of wit; often requiring 
for their perpetration a maximum of insipid verbiage 
with but very little intellectual exertion. Our Gallic 
cousins, perhaps too censoriously, qualify puns as: 

" Jeux de mots, Plays upon words, 

Jeux de sots." Games of dullards. 



376 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

"Puns," says Sydney Smith, "are in very bad re- 
pute, and so they ought to be. The wit of language 
is so inferior to the wit of ideas * that it is very 
deservedly driven out of good company. Sometimes, 
indeed, a pun makes its appearance which seems for 
a moment to redeem its species; but we must not be 
deceived. . . . It is a radically bad race of wit." 
Of charades, he says, "if they are made at all, they 
should be made without benefit of clergy, the offender 
should be instantly hurried off to execution, and be 
cut off in the middle of his dullness without being 
allowed to explain to the executioner why his first is 
like his second, or what is the resemblance between his 
fourth and his ninth." . . . "Professed wits, 
though they are generally courted for the amusement 
they afford, are seldom respected for the qualities 
they possess." 

A gentleman of leisure and good taste wishing to cure 
his heir apparent of the mental infirmity of punning, 
took an indirect, but quickly successful, way to accom- 
plish his object. He refrained from quoting Sydney 
Smith on puns and charades, and, not until the cure 
was effected, did he read to him the following from 
the family's encyclopedia : "Pun, or punn,an expres- 
sion where a word has at once different meanings. 
The practice of punning is the miserable refuge of 
those who wish to pass for wits, without having a 
grain of wit in their composition. James the First 

* The French make a clear distinction between jeu de mots 
and jeu d'esprit; the first being equivalent to pun, quibble, 
quirk; the second implying wit of ideas. 



TABLE JESTS 377 

of England delighted in punning; and the taste of 
the sovereign was studied by the courtiers, and even 
by the clergy. Hence the sermons of that age abound 
with this species of false wit. It continued to be more 
or less fashionable till the reign of Queen Anne, when 
Addison, Swift, Pope, and Arbuthnot, with other real 
wits of that classical age, united their efforts to banish 
punning from polite composition. It is still admitted 
sparingly in conversation; and no one will deny that 
a happy pun, when it comes unsought, contributes to 
excite mirth in a company. A professed punster, 
however, who is always pouring forth his senseless 
quibbles, as Sancho Panza poured forth his proverbs, 
is such an intolerable nuisance to society, that we do 
not wonder at Pope or Swift having written a pam- 
phlet with the title of God's revenge against punning." 
The wise father said not a word against punning, 
but, one morning, at breakfast, began to make puns 
on the edibles, then on almost every phrase uttered; 
sending forth volley after volley of the most silly 
verbal plays, punning upon the very word pun, and 
ending with a history full of puns of many noted pun- 
sters whom he had known, much to the merriment of 
his punning son who responded in kind without de- 
tecting the vein of satire which now and then was 
manifested in the father's speech. At luncheon, the 
galling fire of puns was renewed, but, to the surprise 
of all present, the replies of the junior punster were few. 
At dinner, the punning contagion had affected every 
member of the large family and each poured out his 



378 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

share of puns or conundrums, except the junior pun- 
ster, who listened in silence. On the next day two 
new series of puns, together with a liberal allowance 
of conundrums, charades, and enigmas were served 
up at breakfast and luncheon, but when dinner was 
announced and the facetious exercises of the day were 
renewed, the culprit, having seen his folly through the 
mirror thus presented to his imagination, exclaimed, 
in contrite manner and pitiful accent, that he could no 
longer withstand the mental torture of the past two 
days, and that since he had been the one to introduce 
to the family circle this kind of stupid witticism, 
which had become so unendurable, he would solemnly 
promise to forswear pun-provoking, thyme-flavored 
meats,* and never again to perpetrate a pun or conun- 
drum if they all would agree to stop punning. The 
order to cease firing was then given by the chief of 
the family, the cure being complete. 

14. There was a species of witticism, for a long 
time in vogue among junior students, consisting in 
the substitution of words, sometimes of the same 
measure and sound as the original, often incongruous 
and having an entirely different significance, either 
in proverbs or other short adages, as, for instance, 
"a feast of reason and a flow of soul" is done into 
"a feed of bacon and a stew of sole." Balzac gives 
many examples of these kinds of mental frolics as 
uttered by Mistigris, the student nickname of Leon 

* "The tufted basil, pun-provoking thyme." 

— The School Mistress. Shenstone. 



TABLE JESTS 379 

de Lora.* The epigraph to these notes is but a poor 
illustration of the kind of verbal substitution in ques- 
tion. . . . 

The after-dinner humorous tale seems to be the 
outcome of a delightful reverie, a ramble, a gambol, a 
frolic of the narrator's mind; sharpening the hearer's 
wits, loosening his tongue, and soon impelling him to 
stand on his hinder limbs in the attitude of orator. 

" A merrie laugh helpeth digestion." 

Hence the introduction of those tales without 
which a banquet would be as tedious and uninterest- 
ing as a wineless refection of dyspeptics, for "from 
a dry meal there arise no jokes." . . . The im- 
portance of this salutary institution was realized in 
very early days and was often taken advantage of by 
statesmen who, during the conviviality and good- 
fellowship thus engendered were able to settle grave 
questions sometimes affecting the policy and interests 
of perhaps several nations. It was the custom among 
wealthy Greeks and Romans to have, during their 
banquets, not only vocal and instrumental music and 
dancing, but the relation of jests which, according 
to Athenseus, numbered not less than ten thousand. 
Jest books have since appeared in great profusion. 
The Joe Miller contribution amounted in 1739 to only 
two hundred and forty-three, and was increased in 
subsequent editions to fifteen hundred and forty-six 
jests, at least in an edition printed for Scott and 
Webster, London. . . . 

* Balzac, " Comedie Humaine." 



380 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

In a critical examination of human vagaries, the 
states of vagabondism of the mind called mental 
vagaries would naturally be placed in the ordinal 
line; the wanderer from the truth known as error 
would stand as a genus; inaccuracy as a species; 
and blunder and bull as sub-species. 

Inaccuracy, this lack of mental care, of mental 
exactitude, although one of the characteristics of the 
uncultured, is not necessarily incompatible with fair 
general ability. When the incorrigibly inaccurate 
man happens to be in good company, he is soon 
detected by the general character of his speech, his 
defective early training being betrayed by many 
crudities which are intensified by his positive and 
illogical assertions and by inaccuracies and blunders 
which do not fail to render him ridiculous. He is 
sometimes allied to the japer- punster parasite who 
seeks to be the oracle of the refectory, who is a chronic 
trifler with words, who is familiar with all the town 
slangs and other trivialities which he flippantly uses 
on every occasion, who gabbles emptily and disjoint- 
edly, whose tales are of the maggoty chestnut kind, 
and whose witticisms are generally gross and always 
unseasonable. 

Blunder, this offspring of a gross and often stupid 
confusion of thoughts, may be made by the lettered 
as well as by the unlettered. A blunder may also 
arise from the dread of blundering. An example or 
two may be given in illustration. 

An unsophisticated lad about to be introduced to 



TABLE JESTS 381 

a beautiful young lady was told — "do not say oleo- 
margarine, because, you know, her father has been in 
that business." The young man, though trying to 
bear in mind the injunction, became confused and 
blurted out — "I am charmed to make your acquaint- 
ance Miss Margarine." 

A learned but timid man, unexpectedly called upon 
to make a speech, began with — Gentlemen and Ladies, 
when a friend opposite looked at him significantly and 
coughed. Thus apprised of his blunder, and though 
blushing deeply, he unconsciously turned it to good 
account by saying with increased emphasis — Ladies 
and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, LADIES — 
when he broke down and took his seat amid great 
applause. . . . 

The blunders in acts are too frequent to need illus- 
trative examples. . . . 

The bull, that gross form of mental vagary, says 
Sydney Smith, "is an apparent congruity and real 
incongruity of ideas suddenly discovered. „ . . 
Bulls . . . are the very reverse of wit; for as 
wit discovers real relations that are not apparent, 
bulls admit apparent relations that are not real. 
The pleasure arising from wit proceeds from our sur- 
prise at suddenly discovering two things to be similar 
in which we suspected no similarity. The pleasure 
arising from bulls proceeds from our discovering 
two things to be dissimilar in which a resemblance 
might have been suspected. . . . The stronger 
the apparent connection, and the more complete the 



382 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

real disconnection of the ideas, the greater the sur- 
prise and the better the bull. The less apparent, 
and the more complete the relations established by 
wit, the higher gratification does it afford." Other 
writers have defined the bull, but their definitions 
are substantially the same, though not so happily 
clad as the foregoing. 

"A bull," says Coleridge, quoted by Wheatley, 
"consists in a mental juxtaposition of incongruous 
ideas with the sensation but without the sense of con- 
nection." 

Wheatley, in endeavoring to trace the origin of 
the sub-species of error commonly called a bull, says : 
"Sir Thomas Trevor, a Baron of the Exchequer, 
1625-49, when presiding at the Bury Assizes, had a 
cause before him about the wintering of cattle. He 
thought the charge immoderate and said, 'Why, 
friend, this is most unreasonable; I wonder thou art 
not ashamed, for I myself have known a beast win- 
tered one whole summer for a noble. The man, at 
once, with ready wit, said, ' That was a bull, my lord.' 
Whereat the whole company was highly amused." 
Wheatley quotes this passage from Thorns' Anecdotes 
and Traditions, 1839. 

Inaccuracy, blunder, and bull frequently spring 
from inadvertence, inattention, misapprehension, mis- 
conception, or misunderstanding, and lead to fallacy, 
mistake, misinterpretation, misstatement, or mis- 
print, besides other misdoings; inaccuracy itself 
leading to blunder and to bull. 



TABLE JESTS 383 

The subjects of legitimate humorous stories and of 
other jests are endless; embracing human frailties 
in general, besides vanity, pride, humility, virtues, 
vices, wisdom, wit, art, science, literature, chronology, 
history, politics; the past, present and future of man, 
his relations to organic entities, his occupations, 
thoughts and acts howsoever expressed, and too 
many other things to record. 

Only a few examples need now be given of the men- 
tal vagaries which have served for post-prandium 
recreation from the many taken at random from the 
sources already indicated. They will suffice for the 
present purpose of illustrating those aberrations of 
the mind known as inaccuracy, blunder and bull. 
These examples are taken chiefly from supposed 
school-boy examinations. The answers only are here 
given with suitable headings. 

BIBLICAL. 

"Jonah was the father of Lot and had two wives. 
One was called Ishmale and the other Hager; he 
kept one at home, and he turned the other into the 
dessert, when she became a pillow of salt in the day 
time and a pillow of fire at night." 

"Elijah was a good man who went to heaven with- 
out dying, and threw his cloak for Queen Elizabeth 
to step over." 

CRITICO-BIBLIOGBAPHICAL. 

"Some people say that the Homeric poems were 



384 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

not written by Homer, but by another man of the 
same name." 

BIOGRAPHICAL, HISTORICAL, CHRONICAL, AND 
GEOMETRICAL. 

"George Washington was born in 1492. St. Bar- 
tholomew was massacred in 1492. The Brittains 
were Saxons who entered England in 1492 under 
Julius Caesar. The earth is 1492 miles in circum- 
ference." 

FLUVIAL, GEOGRAPHICAL, POLITICAL, AND COMMERCIAL. 

"The Nile is the only remarkable river in the world. 
It was discovered by Dr. Livingstone and rises in 
Mungo Park." 

" Constantinople is on the Golden Horn, has a strong 
fortress, a University, and is the residence of Peter 
the Great. Its chief building is the sublime Port. 
Its principal product is Port wine." 

MYTHICAL AND GASTRONOMICAL. 

"The Gods live on nectarines and drink am- 
monia." 

PSYCHICAL. 

"Queen Mary was as wilful as a girl and as cruel 
as a woman. But what can you expect from anyone 
who has had five stepmothers!" 

This answer was from a little half-orphan girl whose 
father was much addicted to remarriage. 



TABLE JESTS 385 

MARTIAL. 

" A fort is a place to put men in, and a fortress is a 
place to put women in." 

"Two twentifications make a fortification." 
"Gorilla warfare was where men rode on gorillas." 

CLIMATICAL AND METEORICAL. 

"Climate lasts all the time, and weather only a few 
days." 

POLITICO-ECONOMICAL. 

"The imports of a country are the things that are 
paid for, the exports are the things that are not." 

ETYMONICAL. 

"Restaurant is a word of Latin derivation, from 
res, a thing, and taurus, a bull; therefore it is a bully 
thing." 

"The District of Columbia got its name on account 
of the great swarms of wild pigeons in that part of 
the country; columba being the Latin for dove." 

LINGUISTICAL AND RHETORICAL. 

"Sanscrit is not so much used as it used to be, as 
it went out of use 1500 B. C." 

TAURICAL. 

Inscription on the obelisk near Fort William, in 
the Scottish Highlands: 

" Had you seen these roads before they were made, 
You would hold up your hands and bless General Wade." 



386 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Bulletins of the last illness of Clement XIV: 

1. "His Holiness is very ill." 

2. "His Infallibility is delirious." 

Health proposed by a colored citizen : " De Gober- 
nor ob our State! He come in wid much opposition; 
he go out wid none at all." 

"A man was run over by a passenger train and 
killed; he was injured in a similar manner a year 
ago." 

"Mike went to see a friend who gave him nothing 
to drink but cigars." 



TABLE SUPERSTITIONS 
"Ignorance is the parent of credulity." 

No true castanophilist will be likely to traverse 
this apothegmatic horse chestnut if, for a moment, 
he thinks of the many queer notions that inspire awe 
or fear among over-credulous persons. The sugges- 
tion to write this brief sketch, made by one who con- 
tributed much to the beatitude of his fellows, could 
not have been more opportune for the discussion, at 
the table, of such a subject is certain to evoke from 
the diners many diverting sallies on credulity in gen- 
eral and all manner of superstitions in particular. 

Since the definition of terms is always expected by 
thinkers and inquirers, an endeavor will be made to 
give the logophilists' definitions of superstition before 
undertaking an examination of special delusions. 

Although man has been superstitious from the 
beginning, the word superstition is said to be com- 
paratively modern, though Latin — superstitio, from 
superstare — and first applied to irrational religious 
beliefs resting on supposed supernatural intervention, 
and afterward employed to signify awe, amazement, 
wonder, fear of something not likely to happen. An 
eminent author defines it as literally a survival of sav- 

387 



388 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

age or barbarous beliefs generally outgrown. That 
same writer regards it as "modern and entirely foreign 
to Roman thought," despite the fact that the poly- 
theistic Romans stood in great awe and fear of their 
unreal gods, and were credulous in the extreme con- 
cerning prodigies, such as the rising and walking of 
the dead in the night time, the appearance of ghosts, 
signs in the skies, good or bad omens from the flight 
of birds or from the condition of the entrails of sacri- 
ficed animals, etc., etc. Surely Roman thought was 
full of general and special irrational beliefs, including 
table superstitions, among which was their attribution 
to the hare the virtues of the fountain of youth, and 
their belief that he who had eaten hare for seven 
consecutive days was thereby embellished and as it 
were rejuvenated. Imbued with this notion Alex- 
ander Severus was wont to eat hare at every meal. 

Superstitio was used to signify amazement, awe, 
wonder, dread, fear of the gods, etc., by Cicero, 
Quintillius, Seneca, and other Latin writers. 

" Omnium pestium pestilentissima est superstitio." 
" Nulla scabies scabiosior superstitione." 

In his "Characters," the Grecian philosopher 
Theophrastes used the word deisidaimonia to desig- 
nate superstition which he defined as fear of demons; 
and for the adjective superstitious, used deisidaimon, 
and told of the many irrational beliefs and acts of 
the superstitious man. 

The highly religious Greeks, who lived in the awe 



TABLE SUPERSTITIONS 389 

and fear of their many gods, were imbued with count- 
less superstitions as evinced by their absolute credu- 
lity in the predictions of the several oracles which, 
even in affairs of the State, they habitually consulted ; 
founded as they were on imposture. From the earli- 
est period of Grecian civilization every imaginable 
form of superstition existed in all classes of society 
from the humblest to the greatest, and included divi- 
nation by means of air, water,- earth, and fire, and 
by an immensity of objects derived from the mineral, 
vegetable, and animal kingdoms. The Iliad and 
Odyssey abound with records of superstitious notions 
and odd interpretations of strange occurrences or 
even of natural phenomena. For instance the belief 
that sudden death, among males, was owing to in- 
visible wounds inflicted by arrows discharged by 
Apollo, and among females by the arrows of Diana. 

"Apollo comes, and Cynthia comes along 
They bend their silver bows with tender skill, 
And, void of pain, the silent arrows kill." 

The iatroi who flourished prior to the Homeric 
age were all soothsayers; one of them, Melampus, is 
said to have accomplished marvels by means of in- 
cantations and to have left a large progeny of con- 
jurors to prey upon the people's blind credulity. In 
olden times witchcraft, necromancy, divination, and 
all sorts of superstitions were so common that they 
were forbidden and punished as told in Exodus where 
appears the command: "Thou shalt not suffer a 



390 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

witch to live," and that command has been obeyed to 
the letter, even in modern times, both in Europe and 
in free America! All of these evil practises were 
condemned and forbidden in Deuteronomy, Micha, 
Malachi, Kings, and Samuel, notwithstanding which 
Saul, in distress of mind, went disguised at night to 
consult the witch of Endor. Saint Paul lectured the 
Athenians on their many superstitions. 

In France, superstitions found their cleverest satir- 
ist in Frangois Rabelais whose great romance teems 
with the quaintly irrational beliefs of the people of 
his time. 

In England none more ably than Shakspeare ex- 
posed the fatuity of the superstitious. Alchemists, 
astrologers, and conjurers then abounded in the 
isles as well as on the European continent; largely 
disseminating their pernicious imposture among peo- 
ple ever ready to give it credence. 

Besides classic literature and the effusions of great 
poets, folk-lore and a glance at other sources of the 
history of human foibles and eccentricities, show that 
strange beliefs have always been rife in every nation, 
ancient and modern, savage and civilised, as well as 
in hosts of individuals, uncultured and cultured, who 
all have entertained irrational awe or fears of spectres, 
vampires, ghouls, sorcerers, the evil eye, peries, jinns, 
sprites, fairies, elves, trolls, kobolds, mixes, poukes, 
brownies, leprechauns, urisks, etc., etc. These be- 
liefs are so often recounted at meal time, when the 
incident leisure leads to conversation on many different 



TABLE SUPERSTITIONS 391 

subjects, that vast numbers of them may well be 
placed in the category of table superstitions. 

The occurrence of thirteen persons seated at a table 
to eat has long been regarded as an ill omen. When 
the superstition arose, is unknown, but it has been 
suggested as barely possible that some personage in 
authority having had "bad luck" in odd numbers, 
particularly when the number three occurred, as in 
13, 23, 33,, 43, etc., or for other reasons, started the 
notion that thirteen persons should never sit at any 
table without incurring heavenly displeasure and so 
coming to grief. However, the general belief is that 
the superstition is founded on the part of the Gospel 
of Matthew describing the "last supper" at which 
thirteen were seated. From that time the presence 
of thirteen diners has been supposed to portend the 
death of one of the company within a twelvemonth. 
This belief is now entertained even by men of culture 
and distinction. It is related that, at a dinner of the 
Royal Society Club, London, "one of the Philosophers 
entering the Mitre Tavern, and finding twelve others 
about to discuss the fare, retreated and dined by 
himself in another apartment in order to avert the 
prognostic," notwithstanding the fact that the super- 
stition had been so generally derided privately and 
publicly and that already there were so-called "Thir- 
teen Clubs" designed to satirise this singularly absurd 
creed. These "Thirteen Clubs," many of which are 
still flourishing in civilised countries, make it a rule to 
dine always on the thirteenth day of the month. 



392 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

The first four verses in Beranger's song "Treize a 
Table," fairly exemplify the serious view taken of the 
portent of thirteen at the table, and of the accidental 
spilling of salt. The good old chansonier's effusion 
was with intent to disabuse the people whom he so 
much loved, and this he did in no little measure 
through the charming simplicity of his delectable 
poesy. 

"Dieu! mes amis, nous sommes treize a, table, 
Et devant moi le sel est repandu. 
Nombre fatal! presage epou van table! 
La mort accourt; je frisonne eperdu." 

The spilling of salt at the table is still regarded by 
many as a fearful presage, and is worthy of attention. 
But perhaps a few words relating to salt in general 
may suggest the citation of interesting examples, 
some of them doubtless similar to the metamorphosis 
of Lot's wife and possibly divers others of the same 
sort. 

When Hebrew warriors destroyed a town, they 
spread salt on its site, believing that thereby the soil 
would be rendered forever sterile; the adjective 
salty in Hebraic language being synonymous with 
barrenness. The Egyptians and Romans enter- 
tained this belief and acted in accordance therewith. 
But it is said that by the salt spread upon lands to de- 
stroy their fertility was sometimes meant asphalt. 
Among some eastern nations salt, to this day, is the 
recognised emblem of friendship. To eat salt with 
an Arab was and is regarded as the most sacred tie 



TABLE SUPERSTITIONS 393 

of amity and hospitality. So much importance was 
attached to this that the mere touch of a man's salt 
in his home is sufficient to be friendly and afford him 
protection. An Arab thief, on entering a house, in 
the dead of night, and stumbling upon a lump of salt 
abstained from committing the intended robbery 
and retired. 

Anciently no sacrifice was thought to propitiate 
the gods unless an abundance of salt were used, as 
the most pleasing offering to these gods. 

In the early centuries of the Christian era the salt, 
in a large receiver, was always placed in the center 
of the table. Later it took a new position near the 
head of the table; the chief of the family having the 
place of honor, "above the salt." 

In modern times, for the benefit of those who be- 
lieved in the ill omen of salt spilling at the table, 
many salt-cellars were given such form as to guard 
against their upsetting. 

Before the closure of these desultory remarks, a 
few additional examples of table superstition may 
not be inappropriate. 

An old French officer who firmly believed that the 
flesh of pigeons possessed a consoling virtue, said 
that whenever he had lost a friend or relative he 
would order his cook to serve roasted pigeons for 
dinner, and also said that after having eaten two 
pigeons he was always less sorrowful. 

In French communities, no small boys can be in- 
duced to eat of the excellent salad of dandelion or 



394 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

even to touch the plant, so fearful are they of the 
nightly consequence. From this superstition, the vul- 
gar name given to the herb is pissenlit. 

Superstitious persons regard as bad omens: the 
accidental crossing of a knife and fork on the table- 
cloth; the breaking of a drinking vessel at table; 
the spilling of wine as foreboding the shedding of 
blood; and, in Spanish America, the transverse cutting 
of a banana, because on the surface of the clean cut 
the dark seeds are noticed to be so disposed as to 
take a crucial form, portending despair and death. 
The accidental dropping on the floor of a piece of 
bread is a sad omen to be mitigated only by its im- 
mediate recovery; but he who voluntarily casts away 
the smallest bit of bread is certain to come to want 
and misery. It 'is an ill omen to drink water to a 
friend's health. 



\ 



VI 

FASTING AND FRUGALITY; LUXURY AND EXCESS 

" Le laitage, le miel et les fruits de la terre 
Furent longtemps des Grecs l'aliment ordinaire." 

In its relation to frugality and to excess, man's diet 
has long been an interesting question for discussion 
among lovers of good cheer. His tendency to pass 
from the one extreme of merely tasting only dainties 
to the other extreme of feeding inordinately, is surely 
noteworthy. In the one case he gratifies gustation 
without regard to the nutritive properties or to the 
wholesomeness of edibles; in the other he brutally 
strives to appease a niorbid craving for quantity. 
The first is a pampered gastrolater, the second a 
beastly glutton, whilst the true gourmet is he who 
combines exquisite daintiness with sound judgment 
in the selection of such wholesome aliments as are 
pleasing to the senses and nourishing to the body when 
consumed in moderation. 

The subject of fasting and frugality, luxury and 
excess, is well worthy of examination at any time but 
more particularly in the lenten season. It embraces 
not only religious and moral, but hygienic, social, 
and economic questions which merit the most serious 
consideration, since they so deeply concern the in- 
dividual, the family, the community and the nation. 

395 



396 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

The evolution of the institution of fasting began 
with aboriginal man who had to fast when he could 
obtain no food. This transient famine, in all like- 
lihood, often depending on accident, could not be 
forestalled by him, so that he was probably obliged 
to labor assiduously to increase the intervals of his 
involuntary abstinence which too often must have 
lasted many days. When, however, he did secure a 
supply of edible material he fed to repletion and, 
gorged like the long-fasting python, fell into a state of 
coma which lasted until digestion was far advanced. 
Down to very recent times, such was the life of the 
North American Indian. 

This kind of involuntary abstinence is too common 
in our days, and its occurrence is ill provided against, 
even by civilised nations, despite the precedent of 
Joseph's wise economy in the years of plenty to supply 
all wants during the years of scarcity. Witness the 
famines of the nineteenth century in the Orient and 
in Europe. 

Some of the flesh-eating Tartar soldiery were known 
to fast during three days' fighting and, after victory, 
to gorge themselves for three consecutive days. The 
Chinese pariahs, unable to purchase flesh-meat, for 
ages have lived on the most meagre diet, fish being 
to them a great luxury. 

But, without scarcity, voluntary fasting, or at 
least great frugality, has been observed by some na- 
tions, notably those Hindoos whose religious creed 
forbids the use of flesh-meat, and yet they have always 



FASTING AND FKUGALITY 397 

thriven on a spare vegetable diet. The early Spartans 
are said to have kept certain days of abstinence ; and 
also the Athenians who, on the eve of some festivals, 
fed exclusively on figs and honey. According to 
Stefano Morcelli, Numa fitted himself, by fasting, 
for an interview with the mysterious inmate of 
Egeria's grotto. The Romans observed with great 
strictness a special fast before the beginning of the 
quinquennial festivities in honor of Ceres. 

Among the many men of great eminence who lived 
frugally, sparingly (oligositoi) , the following are men- 
tioned by historians and by writers on diet and lon- 
gevity, namely: Pythagoras, who often contented 
himself with a simple meal of honey; Epictetus, 
Democritus, Aristides, Epaminondas, Phocion, Phor- 
mio, and Manius Curius, the general who lived on 
turnips all his life, and who, when the Sabines sent 
him a large sum of gold pieces, said that he had no 
need of wealth while he lived on such food; lastly, 
Cornaro, the Venetian, who led an exemplarily ab- 
stemious life to the great age of one hundred and 
twenty years. 

Hygienists have long regarded abstention from 
flesh-meat for two or three days in the week during 
the spring season as conducive to bodily health, and 
hailed its practice as one of the wisest of the measures 
imposed as religious duties in many countries. It is 
almost needless to say that it is exacted chiefly by the 
Roman, Greek, Lutheran, and Episcopalian churches, 
and that this lenten abstinence is in commemoration 



398 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

of Christ's forty days' fast. Although, in the second 
century, Tertullian had already written his Tracta- 
tus de Jejuniis, the institution of the lenten fast did 
not occur until the year 325 when it was proclaimed 
by the first general council at Nice in Bithynia, and 
ratified in 364 at Laodicea. The Roman church now 
varies the lenten regulations in different countries 
and climates, and in accordance with the condition 
and occupations of the laity. In the south of Europe 
these regulations are very strict regarding abstention 
from butchers' meats; not so in some northerly lati- 
tudes where such meats are allowed on at least four 
days in the week, and fish on other days but none on 
meat days. 

Before dismissing the subject of lenten abstinence, 
brief mention may be made of a custom which once 
caused a little tempest in the chocolate pot. The 
lady parishioners of certain Mexican places of wor- 
ship were so fond of their morning cup of chocolate 
that they had formed the habit of taking this broth 
in church at early mass even during lent. This came 
to be regarded as a breach of the lenten regulations 
by the parish priests whose protests, however, were 
not heeded and who appealed to the higher clergy. 
After hearing the cause, the Bishops decided in favor 
of the ladies and, in justification of their decision, 
quoted the aphorism of Father Escobar: " Liquidum 
non frangit jejunium." Long afterward, this aphor- 
ism was done into polite Keltic by the chronicler of 
Father Tom's acts: "There is no fast on the dhrink;" 



FASTING AND FRUGALITY 399 

and his "Riv'rence" gave ample evidence, on that 
memorable night at the Vatican, of his firm belief that 
there is no fast on "tobaccay" either, by coaxing 
his Holiness to "take a blast ov the pipe." But 
Father Escobar's aphorism had a precedent very long 
before his time for, the founder of one of the heretical 
sects of Islam that arose soon after Mohammed's 
death, instituted a new fast which was not broken by 
liquids and therefore more liberal than the fast of the 
month Ramadan; lashings of wine being allowed, 
but absolute silence enjoined, as an essential part of 
the fast, probably to prevent gossip or contention so 
likely to arise from too free vinous imbibition. 

Although the effects of frugality and moderation, 
luxury and excess have been contrasted so often in 
works on human dietary, it may not be inopportune at 
this time to set forth in brief the benefits of the first 
and the evils of the second category for the considera- 
tion of lovers of good cheer, particularly those belong- 
ing to the wealthy. 

When primitive man, dwelling in the open air, felt 
the need of raiment, he clothed his body with the 
skins of such creatures as he was able to overcome; 
but the civilised man, sheltered in his palace, used the 
pelts gathered by his serfs only as ornaments to his 
rich robes. To appease hunger, the ancient denizen 
of the forest, in imitation of certain wild beasts, 
plucked from the ground, the bush, or the tree and 
ate of, and was refreshed by, such objects as seemed 
to be relished by his four-footed fellows. He was 



400 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

therefore frugal in the strict sense of the word — he 
was a fruit eater. That fire burned flesh was un- 
doubtedly discovered by a wild man who, however, 
knew not that it could be so regulated as to render 
certain foods more palatable; the institution of 
cookery having been reserved for his ascendants in 
knowledge. 

As man reached a higher intellectual state, he 
gradually became acquainted with the principles of 
alimentation and to be appreciative of good cheer 
which he too often abused by over-indulgence of his 
appetite. The more thoughtful man then began to 
realise that there are times for frugal living and even 
abstinence, and that moderation in all things is always 
becoming, while excess is hurtful to body and mind. 
He saw that men who lived rationally, moderately, 
soberly, were the happiest, had the greatest enjoy- 
ment in life, retained the fullest bodily and mental 
vigor, and lived the longest. He saw how often the 
pampered heir — with more sensual than mental 
.resources, more wealth than discretion, more flat- 
terers than real friends — satiated with luxurious ali- 
ments and unwholesome beverages, was obliged to 
resort to injurious artificial means to promote his 
labored digestion and jaded appetite which had long 
ceased to be excited by those dainties the culinary 
artist knows so well how to prepare. He saw that 
this life of luxurious self-indulgence gave no real 
pleasure to the decayed, weary, modern Sybarite, 
whom early excesses had rendered prematurely old 



FASTING AND FRUGALITY 401 

and infirm and who apparently was not destined to 
pass the prime of life; and he saw how many of his 
other wealthy contemporaries had come to grief, 
like King Solomon, from unbounded luxury and un- 
restrained excesses! 

Indolence, self-indulgence, luxury and excess are 
too often the results of quickly acquired great gains, 
as exemplified by the case of the Romans, the ill- 
gotten wealth of some of whom was counted by 
hundreds of millions which they squandered in de- 
bauchery; spending as many as five millions annually, 
a supper costing the equivalent of four hundred thous- 
and of our dollars, and in one instance paying the 
same sum for a single dish. Robbery by the great, 
bribery, corruption, and dissipations of many kinds 
prevailed among them until their fatal fall. Our own 
people now threatened with the awful fate of those 
dissolute successors of a once happy nation, will 
surely come to grief unless those chiefs of families 
who expect to bequeath to their sons such wealth as 
is more than sufficient to maintain them in affluence, 
exact from these presumptive heirs the adoption of 
some rational occupation which, besides the good it 
must accomplish by example, will give them so much 
satisfaction and such genuine, lasting pleasure as 
compared to the momentary gratification of frivolous 
whims for those idle pastimes whose emptiness is so 
soon realised. Wise parents surely will not be un- 
mindful of the ill effects of spurious amusements and 
lack of employment upon morals, refinement, domes- 



402 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

tic relations, social obligations, happiness, ultimate 
pecuniary resources, and length of life. Thoughtful 
fathers cannot be too prompt in taking heed of the 
tocsin that everywhere is so loudly and constantly 
sounding to warn all men of the dangers likely to 
arise from the actual rapid accumulation of wealth 
which so seriously threaten America with the great 
evils that befell Rome of whose downfall luxury and 
excess were among the chief causes, just as the very 
sudden enrichment of Spain with its consequent 
profligacy, in the sixteenth century, was so much of 
a detriment to the individual and the nation. It is 
said that the early settlers, in Spanish America, who 
gathered more gold than they had ever dreamed 
of, soon returned to the mother country to spend it 
so lavishly and recklessly as to reduce many of them 
to want; and that afterward new comers made money 
more slowly, often in the humblest stations. Profit- 
ing by the sad experiences of their rash predecessors, 
these new immigrants throve by hard work and pen- 
ury, but their hoarded pesetas were destined to be 
frittered away by idle sons who left the grandsons in 
utter poverty. Hence the old saw: 

"Padre bodeguero, Father publican, 

Hijo caballero, Son gentleman, 

Nieto pordiosero." Grandson mendicant! 

How often it has occurred that the lives of rich heirs 
who shunned serious occupation while they made 
the broadest and deepest inroads on wealth attained 



FASTING AND FRUGALITY 403 

at the cost of the most arduous labor, untiring in- 
dustry, great economy, and long self-denial, have 
ended in bankruptcy and beggary! Thoughtless 
gilded youths have never lacked false friends to lead 
them to extravagance and debauchery and then 
desert them as they became insolvent. When, more 
than three hundred years ago, the greatest of dra- 
matists gave his version of that Timon who had 
come to grief by hearkening to his flatterers and 
disregarding the warnings of a truth-teller, he drew 
a prodigious pen-picture that may well answer for 
that of the profligate of our days whose chief purpose 
is to vie with other spendthrifts in the lavishness of 
entertainment of "friends" who will abandon him 
when his exchequer is exhausted; then, having no 
remunerative occupation, he will not retire to a cave 
and die in the wilderness as did his ancient prototype, 
but will inevitably become a tramping vagabond 
doomed to end his days in the poor-house. 

Should luxury, effeminacy, and dissoluteness ever 
unfortunately prevail in America, it is more than like- 
ly that the generation of profligates of such an evil 
day would be in quite as bad a moral condition as the 
ancient Sybarites, but no Delphian oracle would need 
to be consulted to determine the fate of such neo- 
Sybarites if, like their exemplars of old, they should 
disregard all warnings. 

"You shall be happy, Sybarite — very happy, 
And all your time in entertainments pass, 
While you continue to th' immortal gods 



404 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

The worship due: but when you come, at length, 
To honor mortal man beyond the gods, 
Then foreign war and intestine sedition 
Shall come upon you, and shall crush your city." 

Idleness, that first link in the evolutionary chain of 
vice, that forerunner of prodigality and profligacy 
is certain to be the primary factor in the ultimate 
degradation of the individual and the state unless 
the fatal link is promptly shivered; and this first 
link can be destroyed only when chiefs of families 
become fully impressed with the idea that no human 
being is in a proper moral, physical, and social con- 
dition unless he rightly occupy his mind and body for 
the good of his fellow beings. Many young men can 
be redeemed from idleness by being led into pursuits 
which quickly yield substantial and pleasing results. 
Fortunately men who live on their wealth are not all 
given to idleness and many of them even decry it and 
show consistency by passing much of their time in 
occupations that prove recreative to themselves, of 
great aid in the furtherance of the noble objects of 
benevolent organizations, or of much practical utility 
to the people or to the world of science. Whenever 
these patient laborers take the opportunity to en- 
courage their friends in awakening the dormant power 
for beneficence, for the improvement of the moral and 
physical condition of the people, and for the acquire- 
ment and dissemination of useful knowledge, all the 
institutions of great cities throw open their doors to 
the new converts; showing them how much good they 



FASTING AND FRUGALITY 405 

may accomplish during a few hours of each day. 
The wealthy heirs of this twentieth century can derive 
real pleasure and happiness, can enjoy sound mental 
and physical health, and can save the nation from 
ruin only by devotion to pursuits of practical utility 
than which there is no better way to prevent profli- 
gacy. In that case the pitiable lament of "killing 
time" would no longer be heard; there would be no 
dyspeptic idler for a modern Abernethy to advise 
living on a shilling a day and earning it by hard work; 
and there would be no danger of reversion to the age 
when man had for all laws his gross desires. 

It is fervently hoped that the great and increasing 
wealth of very many individuals will never give rise 
to an unoccupied class of men, in view of the glaring 
fact that this wealth is such a serious menace to the 
rising generation. A "leisure class" in our cherished 
country would be a monstrosity, entirely at variance 
with the American spirit, constituting an intolerable 
plutocracy which would inevitably end in inter- 
necine dissention and so rend the very fabric of this 
great republic. 



VII 

GLUTTONY 

" Swinish gluttony 
Ne'er looks to heaven amidst his gorgeous feast, 
But with besotted base ingratitude 
Crams, and blasphemes his feeder." 

The virtues of frugality and fasting having been 
duly commended in the preceding essay, it is meet 
that the enormities of the opposed vices of voracity 
and ebriety receive their merited censure. 

The peremptory demand that writers define their 
terms, renders it necessary to begin this dissertation 
with a concise statement of the derivation and defi- 
nition of some of the expressions therein used. 
Hence the nature of the next paragraph. 

The word gluttony (the sin) — from glutton (the 
sinner) which, in old French and middle English was 
gloton, gluton, glotoun, and in modern Spanish gloton — 
is derived from the Latin infinitive glutire to glut, 
to swallow greedily, to gulp, to gorge, to devour, and 
signifies the habit of eating voraciously and exces- 
sively as expressed by the Greek term polyphagia. 
Certain French authors make unwarrantable and 
purely arbitrary distinctions between gourmandise, 
goinfrerie, gulosite, and gloutonnerie. The gourmand, 
i. e. the gastronome, they say, loves good cheer and 

406 



GLUTTONY 407 

eats with judgment. The goinfre is endowed with a 
brutal appetite and gorges himself without distinc- 
tion in edibles. The goulu eats with avidity; gulping 
his food. The glouton devours noisily and greedily 
all aliments within his reach. Other French writers, 
adopting the definition of the older editions of the 
Academy's dictionary, make no such distinctions and 
regard gourmandise as synonymous with gloutonnerie. 
The gourmand, said Hoffman, is the helluo, the gurges 
of Cicero, the gulce deditus of Terence, the vorax of 
Ovid. In good modern French the word gourmet is 
used, instead of gourmand, to signify a prudent eater, 
skilled in the art of dining, who knows well the quali- 
ties of his aliments, whilst the friand is a true lover of 
dainty morsels, particular^ sweets. Gourmet was 
originally applied to the connoisseur in wines, and to 
the professional wine taster. In English, gluttony 
is the synonym of gormandism, greediness, edacity, 
crapulence, gulosity, and voracity styled limosis 
ovens by Dr. Good. The glutton gorges, gluts him- 
self voraciously with food as well as with drink * . . . 
The carnivorous beast commonly known as the 
wolverine was named glutton on account of its 
voracity. The wolves, foxes, and dogs are glutton- 
ous, greedy food bolters; not so the cat tribes who 
eat more deliberately. Of the omnivora, the gulous 
hog is one of the highest types of greedy feeders. 
But the herbivora are the slowest eaters, because of 

* Rabelais uses the word machefains (mache foin, hay chewing) 
to designate those who have an insatiable appetite, i. e., gluttons. 



408 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

the necessity of thorough mastication and insaliva- 
tion. Among reptiles, the voracious boa-constrictor 
is the colossal glutton. Skeat traces the word vo- 
racity through the Latin uoraci the crude form of 
vorax, from uor-are, to devour, thence uorus which 
stands for guorus, from an older form garus, as shown 
by the allied Sanskrit gara, devouring, as in aja-gara, 
a boa-constrictor, literally goat devouring, from aja, 
a goat, and gri, to devour. Of insects, those incessant 
feeders, the larvae of butterflies typify gluttony in 
the highest degree. The sea anemones may be placed 
in the category of gluttons. The insectivorous plants 
are likewise gluttons. The microscopic rotifera, that 
so constantly gorge themselves with diatomes and 
other minute edible things, are good illustrations of 
gluttony among animalcules. And those masters of 
the world, the bacteria, prey ravenously and often 
fatally upon all forms of life. So gluttonous men 
may properly be likened to any of the creatures noted 
for voracity. . . . 

The words glutton and gluttony are often used 
metaphoricly to express the idea of excessive mental 
and physical exertion, and are applied to some of the 
acts of diligent students, of certain men of business, 
or of greedy corporations. The elder Pliny was called 
a literary glutton because he mentally devoured all 
accessible writings. Even such a strained metaphor 
as " orgies of labor " is used, in a recent work of fiction, 
to convey the idea of over-indulgence in mental and 
physical work, and "mental debauchery" is not un- 



GLUTTONY 409 

commonly used. "Orgies of horror" is also used in 
another work of fiction. Glut is employed metaphor- 
iclyin "The Tempest," 1, 1: 

" He'll be hanged yet, 
Though every drop of water swear against it 
And gape at widest to glut him." 

The present participle gluttoning appears in the 
seventy-fifth sonnet: 

"Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day, 
Or gluttoning on all, or all away." 



The gluttonous human animal differs from his 
cousins the carnivora and omnivora in the particular 
that the appetite, the manner of feeding of these is 
natural, whilst his is unnatural and often morbid. 
The aphorism to the effect that beasts feed, men eat, 
but only men of genius know how to eat, is very per- 
tinent to this subject. The genuine gastronome eats 
in moderation with elegance, daintiness, discernment, 
and with good judgment as to the quality of his ali- 
ments. Some men are large eaters without being 
gluttons. But the human glutton is generally a gross 
feeder to whom quantity is essential and quality 
secondary, and who gorges himself with avidity and 
fierceness. His eyes glare, his countenance is flushed, 
his facial veins are turgid, and his teeth clatter. His 
whole frame is in motion, he feeds, as it were, with 
his eyes, ears, nose, jaws, and hands; grunting swin- 



410 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

ishly and stamping his feet. He is a true type of the 
vorax. There are, however, exceptional gluttons who 
are careful in the choice of their food and drink, but 
they all come to grief and die either from surfeit or 
from the remote effects of their excesses. 

Among the illustrious and eminent men who have 
succumbed suddenly from over-indulgence in food 
and drink may be mentioned Alexander the Great 
who died from the effects of a prolonged debauch; 
the Emperor Septimus Severus who died from acute 
indigestion and vinous excess; and, in modern times, 
the Due d'Escars who died within twelve hours after 
eating too freely of the famous dish of "trujfes h la 
puree d' ortolans" invented by Louis XVIII. Many 
other cases might be cited in which gluttony and alco- 
holism had caused sudden death, and many more in 
which the remote effects of voracity and of habitual 
drunkenness were equally fatal. . . . 

The glutton's picture was drawn with wondrous 
exactitude by the great artist, in the case of Sir John 
Falstaff whose career was traced from the lean youth, 
the middle-aged big-bellied gormandiser, to his later 
years, his decline and his death. And disgusting in- 
temperance, with all its horrors, was painted with 
equal skill in the persons of Stephano and the monster 
Caliban, in The Tempest; Sir John and Bardolph, 
in The Merry Wives of Windsor; Bernadine the drun- 
ken prisoner, in Measure for Measure; Borachio, in 
Much Ado about Nothing; Christopher Sly, in the 
Induction to The Taming of the ShreW; Sir Toby 



GLUTTONY 411 

Belch, in The Twelfth Night; Michael Cassio, in 
Othello, etc., etc. . . . 

Voracity does not always lead to Falstaffian cor- 
pulency, and many cases are cited of emaciated glut- 
tons; notably one of a soldier whose feats of gulosity 
are recorded by Doctor John Mason Good. That man 
not only devoured his own allotment of food but the 
filthy refuse of his mates' rations and, when promoted 
from the ranks, was better able to indulge his insa- 
tiable canine appetite. Accused of eating up a child, 
he vanished, and some time thereafter died in a state 
of marasmus. Grimod de la Reyniere mentioned the 
case of a lean glutton who had frequently made the bet 
that, at one meal, he would eat four hundred and thir- 
ty-two small pasties, and said that the man had always 
won the wager. A distinguished statesman, very lean 
and lank, was, for many years, in the habit of eating 
rapidly and steadily for twenty minutes and of gulping 
a full bottle of champagne wine, then sleeping in his 
chair for fifteen minutes; waking suddenly, he would 
begin to eat and drink as much as before ; then again 
falling asleep, and, for the third time awake consume 
the same enormous quantity of food and drink. Al- 
though he never took any exercise,' his appetite was al- 
ways ravenous, and his leanness as remarkable as ever. 

A few additional illustrations of gluttony, even the 
mythical, may be interesting to the reader, particu- 
larly those related by Athenaeus; as that of Hercules 
whom Epicharmus describes as the type of the greedy 
gormandiser; eating with all his might and main: 



412 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

" For if you were to see him eat, you would 
Be frighten'd e'en to death; his jaws do creak, 
His throat with long, deep-sounding thunder rolls, 
His large teeth rattle, and his dog-teeth crash, 
His nostrils hiss, his ears with hunger tremble." 

Amongst the birds sacred to Hercules was the cor- 
morant, on account of its being emblematic of 
voracity. 

Many of Homer's heroes were pictures of carnivo- 
rous gluttons and great guzzlers of wine. Ulysses, 
even in his old age, says the poet Sardanapalus: 

"Voraciously he endless dishes ate, 
And quaff' d unceasing cups of wine." 

Athenseus cites the case of the athlete Milo of Cro- 
tona, who, at a meal, would eat about twenty pounds 
of meat and an equal quantity of bread, and drink 
nine quarts of wine; and who at Olympia carried on 
his shoulder, round the course, a four years old bull 
which he then struck dead and ate up in a day. The 
same author refers to another athlete, Theagenes of 
Thasos, who "ate a bull single handed." Among 
his other illustrations of gormandisers he cites, on 
the authority of Xanthus, the case of Cambales, King 
of the Lydians, who was a great epicure though an 
excessive feeder and drinker. One night this king 
cut up his own wife and ate her. In the morning, 
finding one of her hands still sticking in his mouth, 
he killed himself. 



GLUTTONY 413 

To deipnophilic pandits it is only necessary to 
name the voracious, swinish Heliogabalus as a notable 
illustration of the typical glutton, and to remind them 
that luxury, debauch, and gluttony were not the least 
causes of the decadence of the Roman Empire as they 
had been of the Persian and Greek monarchies. But 
the cases of Albinus, Phagon, Maximinus, and Geta 
merit more than casual notice, partly because they 
are celebrated in the charming verses of the gastro- 
nomic poet Berchoux. 

"Albinus engloutit dans une matinee 
De quoi rassasier vingt mortels affam6s. 
Phagon fut en ce genre un des plus renommes; 
Son estomac passa la mesure ordinaire: 
Tel qu'un gouffre effrayant que nous cache la terre, 
II faisait disparaitre, en ses rares festins, 
Un pore, un sanglier, un mouton et cent pains." 

During one morning, Albinus consumed five hun- 
dred figs, one hundred peaches, ten melons, twenty 
pounds of muscat grapes, one hundred fig-pickers 
and four hundred and eighty oysters. 

In the presence of Aurelius, Phagon devoured an 
entire wild boar, a hog, a sheep, a hundred loaves, 
and drank the equivalent of a cask of wine. 

The Emperor Geta passed three consecutive days 
at the table; causing to be served to him a series of 
dishes whose names began, each by a letter of the al- 
phabet from the first to the last letter. Thus says 
Berchoux : 



414 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

" Je ne puis oublier l'appetit m^thodique 
De Get a, qui mangeait par ordre alphabetique.'* 

Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, and other Tartar war- 
riors, were great carnivorous gluttons and heavy 
drinkers, as were the beef-eating and beer-guzzling 
Barons in the middle ages. 

A sudden transition, in the relation of remarkable 
cases of voracity, from the middle ages to the nine- 
teenth century, seeming permissible, two examples of 
excessive gulosity, mentioned by Grimod, are there- 
fore quoted in brief abstract. A cavalry officer, with 
a prodigious appetite which he always managed to 
gratify, became so corpulent that no horse could be 
found to bear him, and he was obliged to leave the 
army. His old regiment once halted in the town to 
which he had retired, and eleven of his brother- 
officers invited him to a twelve cover dinner the whole 
of which he ate up, and to the surprise of all he was 
disposed to eat much more although, just before 
coming to this dinner he had taken a great quantity 
of soup, and had eaten a whole leg of mutton to the 
bone. . . . 

A famished Gascon, foraging for his next feed, hap- 
pened in a cafe where a gormandiser was boasting of 
the copiousness of the d'nner which he had just eaten. 
His hearers expressing doubts as to his gastric ca- 
pacity, he said : Although full to bursting, I am ready 
to begin again if anybody will bet. . . . 

I accept the wager, said the Gascon, and besides, I 



GLUTTONY 415 

shall hold my own with you though I too have been 
eating largely and had intended to fast for eight 
days. . . . 

They both fell to, the gormand eating like — a gor- 
mand, and the Gascon like a hungry Gascon. The 
wager was that the first to give up should pay for 
the feast. . . . The Gascon, knowing that he 
could not pay, and feeling that he could no longer 
hold out, let himself fall from his chair in a swoon. . . 
Supposed to be dead of surfeit, his pockets were 
searched and found empty; so the host looked to the 
surviving guest for payment which was promptly 
made. As soon as his opponent had departed, the 
wily Gascon picked himself up and ran off laughing 
and saying that he had ingested enough provender 
to last him for the next eight days. . . . 

In his fourth "Meditation," section Grands appe- 
tits, Savarin gives the case of General Bisson who, 
every day, at his copious breakfast, drank eight 
bottles of wine; and also that of General Prosper 
Sibuet who, when only eighteen years of age, on a 
wager, devoured a whole turkey after having dined 
bountifully. 

Beranger, too, has recorded his protest against 
gluttony, in his satiric song Les Gourmands, a few 
lines of which only need be here transcribed : 



"Et d'allieurs, a chaque repas, 
D'6touffer ne tremblez vous pas? 
Cest' une mort peu digne qu'on l'admire. 



416 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 



Pour gouter a point chaque mets, 
A table ne causez jamais; 
Chassez en la plaisanterie: 
Trop de gens, dans notre patrie, 
De ses charmes etaient imbus; 
Les bons mots ne sont qu'un abus; 
Pourtant, messieurs, permettez nous d'eu dire, 
Ah! pour etouffer, n'etouffons que de rire; 
N'etouffons, netouffons que de rire." 

A brief account of two well known domestic high 
feeders should not be omitted as they are fair exam- 
ples of voracity and polyoinia: A middle-aged man, 
noted for his insatiable appetite and unquenchable 
thirst, once drank, during a dinner, seven quarts of 
champagne wine, to the utter astonishment of the 
other guests. Another giant in edacity consumed, 
without apparent ill effect, during a night's carouse, 
seventeen pints of beer, to the discomfiture of those 
who had wagered that, at a specified time, he would 
slide under the table. . . . 

The sin of gluttony is committed in all periods 
of life is well known, but is rare in childhood; a 
few instances only of precocious gormandism having 
been recorded. The following, related by Grimod, is 
worthy of notation: "A very young boy, after gorg- 
ing himself with food, at a dinner, suddenly burst 
into tears. When asked what ailed him, he said: 'I 
cannot eat any more!' 'Why do you not fill your 
pockets/ asked his neighbor. 'They are already 
crammed, sir/ replied the child." . . . 



GLUTTONY 417 

The very ancient vice of gluttony, transmitted 
from generation to generation, is still making sad 
havoc with man! But in our times, there are no 
instances of voracity comparable to those extreme 
cases related by Athenseus, Berchoux, Grimod, and 
Savarin. Even the four-bottle men, such as those 
who caroused in the beginning of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, are now extremely rare. Nevertheless, the race 
of gluttons is not yet extinct and there are awful 
examples deserving recordation to frighten the young 
who may be disposed to indulge inordinately their 
craving for food and strong drink. 

Civilised nations very justly regard gluttony not 
only as a grievous sin but as a repulsive sensuality 
fraught with the gravest consequences. In Proverbs, 
23—20, 21, the faithful are told: 

" Be not among wine-bibbers, among riotous eaters of flesh : 
For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty." 

The Christian church ranks gluttony among the 
capital sins; and the Islamists believe that, in the 
next life, the sinful glutton is to be consigned to that 
particular hell, spoken of by the Magians, where he 
will suffer the pangs of ungratified everlasting hun- 
ger, and where also the drunkard will thirst in vain 
for drink. 

It cannot be too often iterated that excesses in 
eating and in drinking are degrading to the individ- 
ual, inprrious to his dependents, and demoralising 



418 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

to the multitude who are always too ready to follow 
bad example; and that gluttony is the outcome of a 
depraved state of mind and body generally leading to 
disease and premature death. 



VIII 

TRENCHER-FRIENDS 

"This honest friend, that you so much admire, 
No better is than a mere trencher squire." 

Trencher-friends are commonly styled parasites 
because they feed at the cost of their neighbors. But 
all organisms, even the lowest, live at the expense of 
other beings, as the microbia which may be regarded 
as the primitive type of parasites; feeding as they do 
on other vegetable organisms and on animal creatures, 
just as these live upon their own kind, just as fleas 
have smaller fleas which harbor little fleas which foster 
still lesser fleas. All beings then are parasites and 
nourish other parasites; existing because of their 
parasites.* "In nature all things are relative; there 
is neither great nor small." This intruding ancient 
chestnut is a true parasitic sentence, for it has ab- 
sorbed the quintessence of all that precedes. 

When omnivorous man, the parasite of both vege- 
tables and animals, feeds at the cost of other men and 
at their boards, he becomes the trencher-friend, the 
arch parasite, and it is that kind of parasite which is 
intended as the subject of this parle. 

* Certain microbia are essential to the growth of higher or- 
ganisms, and others are as essential to the digestive process of 
beast and man. 

419 



420 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Trencher-friend, the parasite; trencher-man,* the 
hearty eater; and trencher-knight, f the servant- 
carver or waiter; should not be confounded. Tren- 
cher, a noun in English, is from the French infinitive 
trancher formerly spelled trencher, to cut, to carve. 
The trencher-man received a happy metaphoric 
designation from the French who styled Louis XVIII 
11 la premiere fourchette de son royaume r '; the fork, in 
polite society, having replaced the pocket knife which 
until comparatively recent times, had been used to 
convey food to the mouth. The trencher-friend is 
not only a hearty eater, but the retainer, follower, 
satellite, pensioner, creature, jester, buffoon of his 
host who never treats him as a guest but as a leech, a 
parasite which is his proper appellation. 

To trace the word parasite (para, beside, sitos, grain, 
food), to its original use, it is not necessary to go 
beyond that precious treasury of ancient literary lore, 
the book of Deipnosophists where it is writ that, in 
former days, the name parasite was a respectable and 
holy name equivalent to the title of messmate and 
was used to designate the men appointed, from the 
main body of the people, to be beside the sacred grain, 
to be its custodians and distributors. In Athens there 
were two parasites for each of the Archons and one 
for the Polemarchs. They were the bursars and 
companions of the priests, took a prominent part in 

* "He is a very valiant trencher-man; he hath an excellent 
stomach." 

t"Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany, 
some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Diek." 



TKENCHER-FRIENDS 421 

the sacred mysteries, and a certain amount of grain 
and other kinds of food entered into their allotment. 
In time, however, they were seized with the greed of 
public office and, as they were appointed for only one 
year, they hastened to fill their coffers at the cost of 
the people whom they misrepresented, as is too com- 
monly the case in our own days of official corruption. 
In consequence of their rapacity, they were adjudged 
unworthy of trust, despicable and disreputable, and 
were ever after spoken of with contempt. The ava- 
ricious, shameless trencher-men among them then 
assumed the characters of trencher-friends and man- 
aged to feed at the cost of their neighbors, so that the 
once honorable title of parasite came to be used in 
the odious senses of smell-feast, toady, sycophant, 
etc. 

Among the gormandising cited by Athenseus were 
Dromeas who called the multitudes of oysters and 
the great variety of fish served at a feast as the pre- 
lude to the banquet; and Chaerephon who, 

. . . "Like a cormorant gazed upon the food, 
Ever at others' cost well pleased to eat." 

In Epicharmus' "Hope or Plutus," is a good pic- 
ture of one of the gluttonous parasites: 

"But here another stands at this man's feet, . . . 

Seeking for food which shall cost him nothing, 
And he will drink up an entire cask, 
As if it were a cupfull." 



422 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

The parasite then says: 

" I will sup with anyone who likes, if he 
Has only got the good sense to invite me; 
And with each man who makes a marriage feast, 
Whether I'm asked or not, there I am witty; 
There I make others laugh, and there I praise 
The host that gives the feast. . . ." 

The figurative use of parasite is by no means un- 
common. The plagiarist is often styled literary 
parasite. A good example of this use of the word 
may be found in King Richard II, 2, 2. 

" I will despair, and be at enmity 
With cozening hope; he is a flatterer, 
A parasite, a keeper back of death." . . . 

The parasite, besides being a greedy trencher-man, 
is a touter, toady, and fulsome flatterer of his patron 
who, without stint, supplies him with food, drink, 
raiment and shelter. The attributes of trencher- 
friends are summed up by Timon when, disabused, 
he cursed and dismissed his toadies: 

"Live loathed and long, 
Most smiling, smooth, detested parasites, 
Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears, 
You fools of fortune, trencher-friends, time's flies, 
Cap and knee slaves, vapours, and minute-jacks! 
Of man and beast the infinite malady 
Crust you quite o'er!" 

Of the many typical parasites named by the philo- 
sophic bard, the more remarkable are: Parolles, the 



TRENCHER-FRIENDS 423 

" militarist " ; Autolycus, the rogue; Iago, the mis- 
chief maker; Pandarus, the bawd; and Thersites, 
the sour, crabbed scold. 

The trencher-friend's picture was drawn by Martial 
in the fourteenth epigramme of his ninth Book : 

"Think'st thou his friendship ever faithful proves, 
Whom first thy table purchas'd? No, he loves 
Thy oysters, mullets, boars, sowes' paps, not thee: 
If I could feast him so, he would love me." 

Men become trencher-friends through gormandism 
or impecuniosity or avarice. The case of the Gascon, 
related in the preceding essay is a fair example. But 
the following case illustrates parasitism from avarice 
and gormandism: A wealthy but miserly glutton, 
who boasted that he had never spent more than ten 
cents a day for his food and had always dined at the 
expense of others, was once seen gorging himself, at an 
evening entertainment, and asked if he had nearly 
finished his supper, said: "Not yet; I am now on 
ice-cream." In a few minutes he helped himself to a 
huge portion of goose liver pie, then to more ice-cream 
followed by two large cups of coffee, and finally to 
double portions of stewed oysters and lobster salad, 
washed down by a quart of champagne wine, topped 
by half a gill of brandy. He was often drunk, always 
hungry, ever ready to feed, but never to pay the scot 
and was regaled generally for the amusement of those 
who wished to witness his beastliness. . . . 



424 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Parasites have long been known to resort to queer 
expedients for their living, but one of the most amus- 
ing instances is that recorded in the Nouvel Almanack 
des Gourmands for the year 1827. A man, calling 
himself a friend of humanity, a philanthropic gastro- 
nome, residing in a small town where the superstition 
about the number thirteen prevailed, addressed the 
following letter to the chiefs of families : 

" Ladies and Gentlemen: 

Nature has favored me with such a stomach that, at 
any hour of the day, I may be called upon to take my place at a 
repast. My appearance is good, my corpulence fair, and I 
possess a select repertory of anecdotes, of couplets, and of im- 
promptus which enable me to sustain the conversation when it 
begins to linger, to sing at the end of the meal, and to improvise 
a compliment on the occasion of a birthday feast. I carve and 
do the honors ravishingly. I find no fault if placed between a 
garrulous old woman and a greedy child, or if at my back is a 
door which is alternately opened and noisily closed during the 
entire entertainment. I have sufficient experience never to 
touch a dish which is to be reserved for the next day's use; and 
upon this point my discretion has been known ever since the con- 
tinental blockade, when I was never seen taking coffee or sugar. 
It seems to me that I possess even more than the needful qualities 
to figure at a repast where it would be pitiful to have thirteen at 
table. You will doubtless believe that it is better to feed an 
honest man than to run the risk of dying during the year. There- 
fore be no longer in dread of finding thirteen at your board, for 
I shall always be ready to make the fourteenth." 

(Signed) Gastrophile. 



Flattery is the essential part of the stock in trade 
of the parasitic trencher-friend who has always used 



TRENCHER-FRIENDS 425 

it to secure the good graces of his patron. Hence it 
is that parasite and flatterer are so often used synony- 
mously. The flatterer not only indulges in fulsome 
praise of his host, but in servile imitation of his dress, 
his manners, his eccentricities, and even his infirmi- 
ties. It is said that when Philip of Macedon lost an 
eye, one of his flatterers soon appeared with a ban- 
dage covering one of his eyes, and that when the king 
hurt his leg, the same parasite began to limp. Like 
history, the most ridiculous actions repeat themselves 
from time to time. It is only a few years ago that, 
at a certain court, several of the ladies were limping, 
in imitation of a lame princess of whom they were 
companions. 

In a diatribe on abuses, Robert Burton said: 
"Men like apes follow the fashions in tires, gestures, 
actions: if the king laugh, all laugh. Alexander 
stooped, so did all his courtiers; Alphonsus turned 
his head, and so did all his parasites. Sabina Popcea, 
Nero's wife, wore amber-colored hair, so did all the 
Roman ladies in an instant ; her fashion was theirs. 
... . To see the cacozelian of our times, a man 
bend all his forces, means, time, fortunes, to be a 
favorite's favorite's favorite ... a parasite's 
parasite's parasite, that may scorn the servile world 
as having enough already! ... 

The king of the Sotiani had six hundred picked men, 
as companions, bound by a vow to live and die with 
him. In return they were to dress like the king, eat 
the same kind of food, and share his power; but they 



426 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

were bound to die when he should die, and none broke 
the vow when the king died."* 

The Sotianian custom of dying with the king is 
suggestive of the suttee in connection with which will 
be remembered the clever method employed by 
Zadig to deter a handsome young widow from casting 
herself upon the funeral pyle of her lord; also how 
he succeeded in securing for her, without offense — 
for she wanted him — a better husband than the 
deceased, and how this finally caused the abolition of 
the suttee in a certain part of Arabia. It will also be 
remembered how well the superstitious Louis XI 
cared for the health of the wily flatterer who had 
predicted that he would die one day before the king. 

Permit the citation of a final example of the ser- 
vility of parasites with its degrading effect upon liter- 
ary taste. James the First of England, affected with 
the belittling mania of punning, so infected his flat- 
terers that play upon words soon became a mental 
plague upon the whole nation. It invaded the bar, 
the bench, the pulpit, the stage; and members of these 
several professions carried punning to the greatest 
excess in and out of season. Even the foremost dra- 
matist of the time was not absolutely .immune. He 
indulged freely in the fashionable game, but played it 
with such masterly skill as to render it almost ex- 
cusable. However, he acknowledged that . . . 

* It appears that, in ancient Peru, when an Inca died his ser- 
vants were put to death after having been made drunk. 



TRESTCHEK-FRIENDS 427 

"they who dally nicely with words may quickly make 
them wanton/' and expressed great contempt for 
small "shallow jesters and rash bavin wits"; and for 
chronic punsters of whom he said: "How every fool 
can play upon the word ! I think the best grace of wit 
will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow 
commendable in none only but parrots." 

The punning epidemic had raged for more than a 
century when Swift, Arbuthnot, and other men of let- 
ters exposed its fatuity and showed so well the in- 
feriority of wit of words to wit of ideas — equivalent to 
the French contrast of jeux de mots et jeux aV esprit. 

"A flatterer's life but a brief space endures, 
For no one likes a hoary parasite." 



IX 



RELATIONS OF PHYSICAL AND MENTAL DIGESTION 

"Now good digestion wait on appetite, 
And health on both!" 

To true lovers of good cheer, perfect digestion, 
dainty dishes, mellow wines, mild tobacco, modera- 
tion, and congenial company are essential to whole- 
some mental digestion and to the pleasure of eating 
and the pleasure of the table regarded as so distinct 
and different by the great master who said, substan- 
tially, that the pleasure of eating is the actual and 
direct sensation of a satisfied need, while the pleasure 
of the table is the feeling which arises from the 
impression made upon the mind by the cheering sur- 
roundings, by the splendor of the feast and elegance 
of its accessories, by the excellence of the edibles, 
and by the words and acts of the host and guests. 
It presupposes a high degree of artistic skill in the 
preparation of the aliments, good taste in the choice 
and adornment of the place, and sound judgment in 
the selection of the guests. He further said that the 
pleasure of eating demands, if not hunger, at least 
appetite, whilst the pleasure of the table is generally 
independent of either appetite or hunger. But he 
might have said with propriety, that the pleasure of 

428 



PHYSICAL AND MENTAL DIGESTION 429 

eating and the pleasure of the table are generally 
interdependent, since the prospective enjoyment of 
good things to eat and to hear leads men to congre- 
gate at the festal board where the mental attrition 
of conviviality is so conducive to mutual pleasure 
and improvement. That great apostle of good cheer 
believed it was during the daily feed, among the 
aborigines, that many words were invented, and the 
means of oral interchange of ideas thus gradually 
increased. It is more than likely that amongst the 
earliest words spoken by primitive men were those 
to designate objects fit to eat. The dinner table has 
long been the favorite place for intellectual enter- 
tainment from untechnical conference upon pleasing 
questions in letters, science, and art, vividly illus- 
trated by sparkling pleasantry to stimulate mental 
digestion and conviviality and breed good-fellowship. 
That physical digestio'n exerts much influence on 
mental processes, and vice versd, was long ago recog- 
nised by deipnosophists among whom may be cited 
the author of "La Physiologie du Go-tit," who said: 

" La mani&re habituelle dont la digestion se fait, et surtout se 
termine, nous rend habituellement tristes, gais, taciturnes par- 
leurs, moroses, ou melancholiques, sans que nous nous en 
doutions, et surtout sans que nous puissions nous refuser." 

From these words of the French sage came the sug- 
gestion of the ideas of mental digestion and mental 
indigestion. The metaphoric phrase mental digestion 
may therefore be regarded as an expression intended 
to convey the idea of a just and keen appreciation of 



430 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

the rights of men, and of the nature of things together 
with the quick perception and ready assimilation of 
the salient points of spoken or written language, 
leading to the terse and lucid conveyance of a given 
set of conceptions, and to the proper government of 
actions; whereas mental indigestion is a sorry per- 
version or the utter absence of these qualities tending 
to folly or to evil. It has already been said that good 
physical digestion is essential to sound mental diges- 
tion, and it may be added, even in those whose 
minds are of the acutest sort and whose per- 
ceptions the quickest; convivial and social attrition 
and intellectual surroundings helping very materially 
to awaken and develop dormant mental powers and 
give the right and timely expression to wit, wisdom 
and hilarity. Bad physical and mental digestion 
must inevitably prove fatal to conviviality and 
good-fellowship. 

The mentally well balanced thoughtful scholar and 
true mental and physical gourmet is so careful in 
the selection of his aliments and so prudent in their 
consumption that his physical digestion is seldom 
disturbed, so that his senses generally retain their 
acuteness, and thus his mental digestion is facile. 
Whereas the unlettered or untrained gluttonous 
man who is ordinarily affected with physical and 
mental indigestion, habitually ingests food without 
tasting, inhales odors without smelling, sees the 
beautiful without observing, hears sweet utterances 
of the truth without heeding, touches soft things 



PHYSICAL AND MENTAL DIGESTION 431 

without feeling, and thinks without reflecting; his 
inner sensations and outer senses being congenitally 
obtuse or obtunded from extraneous causes. He is 
therefore unable to appreciate the right sorts of 
physical and mental pabula, and devours the worst 
qualities of each kind. Such men are generally 
reticent, but those who are persistently loquacious 
too often emit noisily a profuse flux of inflated prat- 
tle with numberless gross inaccuracies and a chronic 
obstipation of sound ideas; their defective physical 
digestion intensifying what a learned facetious exege- 
tist so happily styled intracranial tympanitis. 

Mental indigestion is very commonly manifested 
by anarchists and other misguided persons. A 
modern writer, in referring to the proposed education 
of peasants, said: "Fill their stomachs before you 
feed their brains, or you will give them mental indi- 
gestion." This very forcible epigram seems to imply 
that a little knowledge infused into dull heads with 
empty stomachs or poor digestion is a dangerous 
experiment, as it proved to be in the case of the 
plain people during the French revolution of the eigh- 
teenth century and, in our own country, in the case 
of the "strikers" who are so sorely afflicted with 
mental indigestion. 



X 

FOOD ALLOWANCE TO WARRIORS* 
" There never was a good war or a bad peace." 

War began not with man but with the lower crea- 
tures, one against one or many against one or against 
many; the contest being for supremacy in love or 
for the satisfaction of hunger, all being free lances, 
marauders, and creatures of prey; the strongest 
surviving. Probably the earliest well organised 
armies of trained fighters were of those cunning, 
savage, six-legged pigmies the ants, which, arrayed in 
orderly bodies, advance upon opposing armies of ants, 
deliver battle, kill each other and take prisoners those 
that surrender and enslave and house them in well 
provisioned garrisons, and compel them to do menial 
work. 

Before the cultivation of his powers of observation, 
knowing not yet the wiles of the ants, man, by brutal 
instinct, was militant almost from the first. Finding 
that, without artificial weapons, he could obtain only 
small beasts, and wishing to prey upon the larger, he 
provided himself with a rude cudgel with which he 
killed a large, furry animal, in some way contrived 
to skin it, used the pelt as a protective garment, and 

* Read at a dinner of military men. 
432 



FOOD ALLOWANCE TO WARRIORS 433 

ate up the flesh. It is more than likely that, not long 
thereafter, in contention with one of his own kind, 
he used a similar cudgel against this new enemy whom 
he overcame and devoured. Then probably began the 
first tribal war or rather something like the Corsican 
vendetta. Later, organization becoming necessary, 
voluntary warriors were trained to fight together and 
to despoil the enemy of his belongings. Very much 
later the militants became wards of the nation, and, 
besides a monthly stipend, food and raiment, equip- 
ment and lodging were allowed, for which they pledged 
themselves to obey the commands of their superiors 
in coping in arms with the country's enemies at the 
risk of disability or death. 

Good or bad, just or unjust, there will be wars, 
many of the evils of which could not be averted even 
by the most complete preparations therefor in time of 
peace; not the least important preparation being a 
thorough equipment of the army's subsistence de- 
partment and its administration upon a scientific 
basis. . . . 

The quaint saying of a sturdy commander of old 
to his troops — "trust in God but keep your powder 
dry" — doubtless suggested the admonition of a pru- 
dent commissary of subsistence to the soldier — " trust 
in God but keep your rations dry." An illustrious 
warrior once said that the army with the longer purse- 
strings is almost sure to be the winner, and all great 
captains are agreed that a well appointed commis- 
sariat is as essential to the success of a campaign as 



434 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

are the most approved arms, munitions, equipments, 
numbers, and generalship. Indeed very long purse- 
strings are needed to procure the quantity and quality 
of alimentary fuel necessary to keep the human 
machine in motion and enable the soldier to withstand 
the hardships of camp life, of long marches, and of 
feats of arms leading to victory. It is true that 
battles have been fought and won by poorly fed troops, 
but those are only rare exceptions where sick, half- 
starved men, forgetting their ill health and jejune 
stomachs have fought desperately not for pabulum 
but for glory; nevertheless, it may be said that, in 
modern times, no army of courageous men, howsoever 
well disciplined, has thriven long without a proper 
supply of the right sort of food and raiment. 

The often iterated statement that, in the time of 
Mohammed, the Arabians were hardy warriors, 
inured to great hardships, though they "lived in a 
most parsimonious manner, seldom eating any flesh, 
and drinking no wine," only serves to emphasize the 
well known fact that, in tropical regions very little 
red meat is required and that alcoholic beverages 
have been judged unnecessary in the belief that even 
their moderate use is hurtful in the warm latitudes; 
hence their proscription by the Prophet. 

Experienced officers have long realised how dis- 
heartening to the soldier always is a badly adminis- 
tered commissariat and how gravely responsible it is 
for the insalubrity of encampments, whilst a richly 
provided and well conducted department of subsis- 



FOOD ALLOWANCE TO WARRIORS 435 

tence not only causes a marked reduction of the sick- 
list, but is one of the potent factors in the mainte- 
nance, efficiency, and in the ultimate result of the war 
undertaken. 

The danger to an army that endeavors to live on the 
country through which it passes will not be minimised 
when the disasters of Napoleon's incursion into Russia, 
during both advance and retreat, are borne in mind. 

A brief digression may not now be entirely out of 
order since it relates to one of the most indispensable 
of the food animals in time of war as in time of peace, 
namely; that so-called unclean beast the hog which 
has constituted so great a staple among food-stuffs 
for so many thousand years. No well organized army, 
in modern times, except the Turkish, has ever been 
without an adequate supply of pickled pork or of 
bacon, and few confiding stray pigs have ever been 
known to enjoy long the blessings of adolescence or 
even of infantile innocency in the neighborhood of 
any military camp. Scarcely any of the parts of 
the slaughtered hog are ever cast away. We are told 
that, in ancient times, even the teats and uterus of 
the pregnant sow were eaten as great delicacies, 
while the "coarser parts" were given to the lesser 
people of the soldiery; that, among the Persians, hogs, 
as well as oxen, horses, and camels, were roasted in 
their entirety; and that the Greeks also were wont to 
prepare their army feasts in the same style. The 
Iliad affords notable instances, one of which was 
when Achilles entertained Hector on his visit to the 



436 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Greek warriors in their camp before Troy. Athe- 
na3us too, in the fourth book of the Deipnosophists, 
describing the marriage feast of Caranus the Mace- 
donian, speaks of the service of a huge roasted boar 
on a large silver platter edged with gold. 

Another illustration of the fashion of cooking entire 
a large animal is given by Petronius * in his account 
of Trimalchio's feast where full grown hogs, one of 
which was stuffed with sausages, were served to the 
guests on ample dishes. Although the foregoing ex- 
amples assuredly show our modern barbecue to be a 
relict of a very ancient and highly respectable in- 
stitution, there is no knowing how long the North 
American Indians have been in the habit of roasting 
bears and other large beasts entire without removing 
the hide or hair or even the entrails; so this primitive 
barbecue may have greatly antedated the like Persian, 
Grecian, and Roman feasts. 

It is said that the Roman army rations consisted 
of pork, cheese, wheat, vegetables, oil, and salt; that 
each soldier, on the march, carried a burden of at 
least sixty pounds including fifteen days' rations; 
and that the drink provided (posca) was a mixture of 
vinegar and water. The modern means of transpor- 
tation are such that the soldier of to-day is seldom 
required to carry more than three days' rations which, 
besides, are so prepared as to be less bulky or heavy 
than a corresponding number of the rations of ancient 
times. 

* Satyricon, xl-xlix. 



FOOD ALLOWANCE TO WARKIORS 437 

Although that comparatively modern institution 
the army commissariat has increased prodigiously in 
efficiency during the last half century, there is still 
much room for improvement, even in the well organ- 
ized European subsistence departments as well as in 
ours. The happy designation — mouth munitions — 
given to the army ration by tile French soldier serves 
to distinguish this life-sustaining from the death- 
dealing ammunition, and to emphasize the fact that 
it is as indispensable in war as powder and shot. 

The Continental, English, and American armies 
have always been supplied with the flesh of the hog 
in some form or another to take the place of fresh beef 
when such is not to be had. The allowance of meat 
is, however, more bountiful in the American and 
English than in the Continental armies, and the Amer- 
ican rations are quite as liberal and varied as those of 
other nations, except the bread ration which is only 
eighteen ounces, while that of Austria, Belgium, 
France, Germany, Holland, Italy, and Switzerland, is 
a little more than a pound and a half; Germany al- 
lowing one kilogramme daily to the marching soldier. 

Whenever practicable the American soldier is al- 
lowed twenty ounces of fresh beef or mutton per day, 
otherwise sixteen ounces of canned meat or twelve 
ounces of bacon, and on Fridays fourteen ounces of 
dried fish or eighteen ounces of pickled fish instead 
of meat. Of soft bread or flour the ration is eighteen 
ounces and of hard bread sixteen ounces, or in lieu 
thereof twenty ounces of corn meal. Of rice or horn- 



438 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

iny one ounce and three-fifths. Of beans or peas two 
ounces and two-fifths. Of potatoes, sixteen ounces, 
and a fair proportion of fresh vegetables, including 
onions. Dried fruits, such as prunes, apples, or 
peaches enter into this dietary. Of roasted and 
ground coffee the allowance is one ounce and seven- 
twenty-fifths or tea eight twenty-fifths, and of sugar 
three ounces and one-fifth. Of condiments the rations 
consist of salt sixteen twenty-fifths of an ounce, vine- 
gar four twenty-fifths of a gill, black pepper one twen- 
ty-fifth of an ounce, and pickles four twenty-fifths 
of a gill. Canned tomatoes and desiccated vege- 
tables — often styled desecrated — enter into the rations 
of the army in the field. There is also a ration of 
soap and one of candles. 

Reserve or emergency rations consisting of food- 
stuffs preserved in concentrated form, ordinarily for 
three days' subsistence, and carried in the soldier's 
knapsack, have been of the greatest service in the 
field, as shown particularly during the Franco-Prus- 
sian war; every German soldier being supplied with 
enough food to sustain life for two or three days in 
case of disability or separation from his command. 
The American emergency rations consist of preserved 
meat and bread component and of chocolate. The 
British emergency rations consist of pemmican in 
tins, and of cacao mixed with honey, and some hard 
bread. The pea sausage has been largely used in the 
German army, and probably still enters into its 
"iron" rations. 



FOOD ALLOWANCE TO WARRIORS 439 

Under a liberal allowance of animal and vege- 
table food with a fair supply of fat and sugar and 
good drinking water, the American soldier not only 
thrives in camp, but withstands the fatigue inci- 
dent to long forced marches, and the arduous labor 
of trench digging, and, after his invigorating pint 
of hot sweetened coffee, is in the best moral and 
physical condition for hard fighting. 

The sugar ration is of very much importance, to 
the active trooper, as a muscle builder and should be 
increased even in the American army although the 
allowance, three and one-fifth ounces, is greater 
than that made to foreign soldiers; half an ounce 
being the allotment in some countries. England, 
however, gives her soldier two ounces daily, but this 
paucity, is, in a measure, compensated by the use, in 
barracks, of sweet jams for supper. 

The vinegar ration should be increased or supple- 
mented by fruit acids, such as the citric or malic. 
The Roman soldier drank his posca evidently in the 
belief of its being a pure stimulant, whereas it really 
acted as a digestive and preventive of gastric fermen- 
tation. 

Too much cannot be said of the importance of 
water as a food, in consideration of the fact that the 
human body consists of about seventy-two per cent, 
of this H 2 mineral at least four pints of which it 
gives off each day: so the ration of drinking water 
should not be less than three pints, the fourth pint 
being contained in the other foods. It need scarcely 



440 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

be said that much of the sickness among troops in the 
field or in barracks is due to the ingestion of polluted 
water, and that it is prevented whenever the com- 
missaries of subsistence provide larger vessels" for 
boiling water to make tea or coffee infusion, leaving 
the excess to cool for drinking. It is, as all know, 
mainly the foulness of the waters of the Orient that 
induced its people to use tea infusion as their common 
beverage, and it is probably for the same reason that 
the Greeks and Romans ordinarily drank hot water, 
and that the Continental armies are allowed rations of 
beer, cider, wine, or of brandy to be mixed with 
water. 



XI 



TOBACCO SMOKING 

"Sublime tobacco! which from east to west 
Cheers the tar's labour or the Turkman's rest." 

Ye lovers of delicate sensations, listen with be- 
coming gravity to the crackling of scores of tobaccic 
chestnuts in roasting for your mental delectation 
while you are physically soothed by the sweet nicotian 
fumes that now permeate the pores of your fertile 
minds to excite a profuse effusion of the brightest 
scintillations of wit; and note the brief exordium that 
links smoking with clerics, with American Indians, 
with thirst, with the pleasures of the table, the reveries 
of idlers, and the deep cogitation of philosophers. 

The post-prandium demie-tasse and petit-verre being 
generally accompanied by a scroll of ignited tobacco 
to "flavor both the divil and the dhrink,"* the enco- 
mium of the cardinal virtue of smoking is always in 
order at the latter end of all refections, particularly of 
sumptuous feasts provided by artistic chefs, and, on 
such grand occasions, might well begin with the quo- 
tation of the glorious, noble, sublime apothegmatic 
sentiment of an ancient Algonquin sage to the effect 
that every righteous man should be a good smoker. 

* Father Tom. 
441 



442 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

In disconnection * from wild Indians, it will surely 
be remembered that the moment Gargantua, the dis- 
coverer of aerial inhalation, had drawn his first 
breath, he proved drink to be an absolute necessity 
by loudly crying for an abundant supply of fluid, 
which he consumed in a prodigiously short time and 
by calling for more and more throughout life. It will 
also be remembered that his forward son and heir, 
Pantagruel, gave additional evidence that thirst is 
the natural state of man, nearly three-fourths of 
whose body he shrewdly suspected to consist of water 
for quenching the inward fires. Much of this water 
he finally discovered to be expired and transpired; 
the greater part, however, being distilled by means of 
certain internal retorts and then expelled through 
special conduits. This wonderfully copious exit of 
corporeal humidity he unaidedly f found to be the 
cause of thirst. Certain lovers of the weed have since 
boldly asserted that thirst is appeased by tobacco 
smoke and that the effects of excessive smoking are 
neutralised by drink. 

Had the new world been discovered only a few 
decades before the end of the fifteenth, and tobacco 
introduced early in the sixteenth century, the afore- 
named Pantagruel, this worthy emule of a thirsty sire, 
this shrewd and close observer of men and things, this 
philomathic and encyclopedic author would assur- 

* The sound of in disconnection is suggestful of the vicious 
locution in this connection, so often used even by eminent 
writers. 

f'Ha trouve" cela tout seul"; an ancient ironical apothegm. 



TOBACCO SMOKING 443 

edly, through his scribe Alcofribas, have composed an 
exhaustive dissertation upon, and offered some ex- 
planation of, the cause of human craving for the lux- 
urious inhalation of the products of combustion of 
odorous herbs, and doubtless would have been a con- 
stant consumer of the fragrant regal weed on a scale 
proportionate to his vast pulmonary capacity. 
Since, however, the desired crop of nicotian lore can- 
not be gleaned from the immense Gargantuan and 
Pantagruelian fields of general knowledge, it will be 
necessary to recur to the inedited work of the indus- 
trious Capneus Capnophilus for the needed facts 
respecting tobacco ana and annals. The evolution of 
tobacco smoking, says, with solemn profundity, this 
true lover of the weed, like that of many other great 
and good things, was necessarily slow. Imagine, 
further says the learned antiquarian, a company of 
savages, squatted around the fire that had served to 
cook their quickly devoured meats, piling on savory 
herbs to smolder and emit a great cloud of smoke 
which they inhaled with much satisfaction until 
came slumber and dreams of the happy hunting 
ground. Again imagine an improved method, still 
used in savage lands, consisting of making a hole in 
the ground, filling it with sweet scented burning 
leaves, and inhaling the smoke through long hollow 
reeds. Here, then, is the first link in the evolution 
of the pipe which possibly the next generation brought 
forth in the form of nutshells, of tiny gourds, or later, 
of diminutive roughly fashioned cylinders of wood. 



444 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

Finally the dried herbs were broken up and packed 
in tubes made of stone, or the comminuted herbs were 
wrapped cylindrically in corn husks and smoked in 
that form. 

The hole in the ground, the primitive pipe, and the 
corn husk scroll clearly monstrate the transition from 
collective to individual smoking among aborigines. 
Squier and Davis,* while exploring certain western 
Indian mounds, found therein many pipes and pipe- 
bowls artisticly carved out of stone in the shape of 
human heads, beasts, birds, f etc., and reached the 
conclusion that the mound builders were inveterate 
smokers. It is not likely, however, that in those 
ancient times the ardent lovers of the pipe pos- 
sessed what is now known as tobacco. The combus- 
tible substance with which they filled their pipes was 
probably similar to that used by existing tribes, i. e. 
the inner bark of the red willow mixed with red sumac 
bark and leaves, called in Algonquin dialect, kinni- 
kinic, which means a mixture, and this kinnikinic is 
even now added to tobacco with economic intent. 

The use of tobacco must have come much later, 
though probably long before the advent of Columbus, 

* "Ancient monuments of the Mississippi Valley." Smith- 
sonian Institution, 1848. 

f In his interesting report on " Pipes and Smoking Customs 
of the American Aborigines," Smithsonian Institution, 1899, Mr. 
Joseph D. McGuire suggests that the tubular was the main pre- 
columbian form, and thinks some markings detectable in the 
stone pipe bowls found in the mounds, due to the use of metal 
tools brought in by Europeans and that they are comparatively 
modern. Other archaists take issue with him concerning the 
antiquity of mound pipes. 



TOBACCO SMOKING 445 

for, the herb as we now know, required skilful cultiva- 
tion and careful preparation to bring it to a proper 
state of excellence for smoking; and cultivation and 
the needed fermentation and final desiccative process 
imply observation, experience, and increased knowl- 
edge and, in the case of the pipes, no little mechanical 
skill and artistic taste. Squier and Davis * believed 
that, among the North American Indians, the practice 
of smoking was "more or less interwoven with their 
civil and religious observances and that the use of 
tobacco was known to nearly all the American nations. 
In making war and in concluding peace, it performed 
an important part. Their domestic and public delib- 
erations were conducted under its influences; and no 
treaty was ever made unsignalised by the passage of 
the calumet. The transfer of the pipe from the lips 
of one individual to those of another was the token 
of friendship and a gage of honor with the chivalry 
of the forest which was seldom violated. . . . 
Along the Mississippi and among the tribes to the 
west of that river, the material most highly valued 
for the fashioning of pipes was, and still is, the red 
pipe-stone of the cdteau-des-Prairies, a mineral re- 
sembling steatite, easily worked and susceptible of 
a high polish. The place whence it is obtained 
. . . was regarded with superstitious veneration 
by the Indians, who believed it to be under the special 
protection of the Great Spirit. . . . Until very 
recently it was the common resort of the tribes, where 
* Loc. Cit. 



446 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

animosities were forgotten and where the most em- 
bittered foes met on terms of amity." 

Very soon after discovering the island of Cuba, 
Columbus, thinking it was the country of Cathay, 
sent two of his men with an Indian as interpreter,on 
an embassy to the Great Khan. When they returned* 
the ambassadors added to their report that they had 
seen by the way many men and women who carried 
in their hands burning coals and certain weeds rolled 
up in leaves, and each, lighting one end of a scroll, 
sucked the other and inhaled the smoke, whereby 
they were all put to sleep and made almost drunk. 
They called these scrolls tabacos. The Spaniards, 
after a little time, learned from the natives how to 
prepare and smoke these tabacos, which they soon 
did to great excess. (Tarducci.) There is no doubt 
in the minds of observing travellers and accomplished 
archaists that tobacco smoking, in the form of cigars, 
cigarettes, and pipes was a distinctive American virtue 
unknown and unpractised in other countries until 
some time after the Columbian advent, although many 
attempts have been made to show that there were 
smokers of the glorious weed in the old world long 
before the discovery of America. 

"Francisco Lopez de Gomara, who was chaplain 
to Cortez when he made the conquest of Mexico in 
1519, speaks of smoking as an established custom 
among the people; and Bernal Diaz relates that the 
King Montezuma had his pipe brought with much 

* November 4th, 1492. 



TOBACCO SMOKING 447 

ceremony by the chief ladies of his court, after he had 
dined and washed his mouth with scented water. 
In the vicinity of the city of Mexico quantities of clay 
tobacco pipes have been dug up of various fanciful 
forms, which show that as great an amount of atten- 
tion was bestowed on their decoration by the old 
Mexicans as we have devoted to them in Europe." 
(Fairholt.) 

The following myth of the finding of tobacco was 
originally related by a Swedish missionary, who hav- 
ing preached to a Susquehanna tribe a sermon on 
the Christian religion, heard an old Indian say: 
"What you have told us is very good; we thank you 
for coming so far to tell us those things you have 
heard from your mothers; in return we will tell you 
what we have heard from ours." 

"In the beginning we had only flesh of animals 
to eat, and if they failed we starved. Two of our 
hunters having killed a deer and broiled a part of it, 
saw a young woman descend from the clouds and seat 
herself on a hill hard by. Said one to the other : ' It 
is a spirit, perhaps, that has smelt our venison; let 
us offer some of it to her.' They accordingly gave 
her the tongue; she was pleased with its flavor and 
said: 'Your kindness shall be rewarded; come here 
thirteen moons hence, and you shall find it!' They 
did so; and found where her right hand had touched 
the ground, maize growing; where her left hand had 
been, kidney beans; and where she had sat, they 
found tobacco." (Fairholt.) 



448 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

The explorers who followed Columbus found tobacco 
smokers throughout North and South America, and 
ascertained that tabaco was the name of the utensil 
in which the weed was placed for smoking, as the 
scroll called cigar in English, tabaco in Spanish 
(Cuba), puro, because all tobacco, in Mexico,* as the 
leaf broken up and wrapped in corn husk (now the 
cigarro, or when wrapped in paper, cigarro de papel 
in Cuba, cigarrito in Mexico, cigarette in France and 
in this country); as the pipe or as the reed through 
which the fumes were inhaled: whereas the plant 
was called kohiha in the Caribbee Isles, cohiba and 
cogidba in Hispaniola, yetl and piecetl in Mexico, pelun 
in Brazil, yoli in divers places, uppowoc and apooke 
in Virginia, and tobah (according to Sir Francis Drake) 
in other parts of North America. . . . 

It is often asked "Whence comes the word cigar?" 
But the question does not appear to have been an- 
swered definitely. The following, abstracted from 
Larousse, is given for the examination of etymonists. 
The French vocabulist derives cigar from the Spanish 
cigarro which is said to come from cigarar, to roll in 
form of a curl paper (papillote, papilloter), to roll in 
paper, i. e. to roll tobacco in paper. This clearly 
designates the cigarette. It has also been said that 
the Spanish word cigarro is from cigarra, cicada 
(locust) because of a certain analogy of form, but this 
resemblance is far from being striking. The identity 
of the two words is, however, evident, and their com- 
mon origin does not seem contestable. There is no 



TOBACCO SMOKING 449 

doubt as to the nativity of the cigar, but the origin 
of its name is as yet undetermined. Larousse rejects 
Littre's view; to the effect that the cigar is so named 
because of a vague resemblance in form to the body 
of the cicada, and prefers Romey's explanation which 
he gives in full. In the first years of the XVI century, 
says Romey, tobacco, which the Spaniards had al- 
ready cultivated in Cuba and of which they had formed 
the habit of smoking in imitation of the Cuban abor- 
igines, was by them introduced into Europe. At 
Seville and in all Andalusia this plant was soon culti- 
vated in the gardens and orchards adjoining the houses, 
and these gardens and orchards were called cigarrales. 
Each proprietor had his tobacco from his own cigarral 
and prepared or caused to be prepared scrolls of the 
leaves for smoking after the Indian fashion. When- 
ever he offered one of these scrolls to a guest, he said : 
' es de mi cigarral' ; it is from my garden. In time 
came the phrase, este cigarro es de mi cigarral, this 
cigar is from my garden, hence the name cigarro, 
cigar. As to the designation cigarral, given to gardens 
and orchards adjoining town or country houses, it 
had come from cigarra: the cicada being very com- 
mon in Spain, and cigarral, meaning a place where 
the cicada is wont to sing. It is in this indirect sense 
that cigarro is said to come from cigarra, but not on 
account of any resemblance of the cigar to the body 
of the cicada. 

The following statement of the case from Murray's 
Dictionary is not exactly in accord with what precedes : 



450 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

" Cigar, segar. Spanish, cigarro. French, cigare. 
The Spanish word appears not to be from any lan- 
guage of the West Indies. Its close formal affinity 
to the Spanish cigarra, cicada, naturally suggests its 
formation from that word, especially as derivatives 
often differ merely in gender. Barcia, Great Ety- 
mological Spanish Dictionary, says 'el cigarro figura 
una cigarra de papeV (the cigar has the form of a 
cicada of paper). Mahn also thinks that the roll of 
tobacco leaf was compared to the body of the insect, 
which is cylindrical with a conical apex. The name 
cigarral applied to a kind of pleasure-garden and sum- 
mer-house (as the cigarrales of Toledo), which has 
sometimes been pressed into service in discussing 
the etymology, is said by Barcia, after P. Caudio, to 
be related neither to cigarra nor cigarro, but to be of 
Arabic origin meaning 'little house' (casa pequena). 
It is said, however, to be applied in Cuba to a tobacco 
garden or nursery." . . . 

The last edition of the Madrid Academy's diction- 
ary gives no help toward the solution of the question. 

Tobacco seed was first brought to Spain from 
Cuba in 1493 by the companions of Columbus* The 

* It is said that there is, in one of the galleries of Spain, a 
historic picture of Christopher Columbus standing on the deck 
of his ship in the port of Palos, smoking a cigar, just before put- 
ting off on his first voyage of discovery. This pictorial anach- 
ronism is not more remarkable than the American example in 
which Columbus is represented in the act of making the egg 
stand on end by main force with the result of marring the table 
or its cover. Such are among the many ways in which history 
is often portrayed! ... 



TOBACCO SMOKING 451 

plant was then cultivated in a few private gardens and 
the leaves made into cigars for smoking in imitation 
of the Cuban aborigines. It is, however, clear that 
the use of tobacco had not been confined to the in- 
habitants of Cuba and of Mexico, for as early as 1535 
Jacques Cartier had found the natives of Canada to 
be smokers of this herb which they esteemed a great 
luxury; but it does not appear that he had then sent 
any of the seed across the Atlantic . Different dates 
are assigned for the introduction of the "Indian 
herb" into Great Britain. Some writers assert that 
Ralph Lane, whom Raleigh had sent as Governor of 
Virginia, brought the plant on his return in 1586; 
others say that it reached England in 1577; while 
Taylor, the water poet, declares that it was Sir John 
Hawkins who in 1565 made it known to the English 
people. 

Tobacco became generally known in Europe prin- 
cipally through the French ambassador to Portugal; 
Jean Nicot, who in 1560, having purchased seed from 
a Flemish merchant arrived from Florida, planted it 
in his garden at Lisbon, and sent some of the seed 
to the Grand Prior of France, when the plant was 
called herbe du Grand Prieur, herbe de Vambassadeur, 
herbe de la reine, herbe Medicee, after Catherine, tabac, 
petun, buglosse antarctique, jusquiame du Perou, herbe 
sainte, and finally, by Linnaeus, nicotiana in honor 
of Nicot. In Russia and Germany it is called tabak, 
in Sweden tobak, and in Poland tabaka. In Italy it 
was styled erba Santa Croce after the cardinal of 



452 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

that name, and Tornabona from a French envoy. 
It also received the names of herba panacea, sana 
sancta Indorum, and other fanciful names in dif- 
ferent countries, while in England it had the slang 
name mundungus, signifying black pudding. But the 
designation tabaco made by Hernandez, the botanist, 
persisted with slight modifications in the orthography 
to suit different languages; its present botanical name 
being Nicotiana Tabacum. Its cultivation and use 
soon passed from western Europe to Turkey, Syria, 
Egypt, China, India, Java, Sumatra, and the Philip- 
pine Islands, and at present there are few regions of 
this earth where it is not raised and smoked. In 
England Sir Walter Raleigh rendered tobacco smoking 
fashionable for a time; * even women luxuriated in 

* Although Ralph Lane is supposed by Harriot and Camden 
to havebeen the first English smoker, Fairholt quotes Pennant 
who writes of "Captain Myddleton, who fought at the Azores 
in 1591 : ' It is sayed that he with Captain Thomas Price of Plas- 
yollin, and one Captain Kolt, were the first who smoked, or (as 
they called it) drank tobacco publickly in London, and that the 
Londoners flocked from all parts to see them. Pipes were not 
then invented, so they used the twisted leaves or segars.' He 
gives this on the authority of the Sebright MS., and adds, 'The 
invention is usually ascribed to Sir Walter Raleigh. It may be 
so, but he was too good a courtier to smoke in public, especially 
in the reign of James.'" 

In the Joe Miller of Scott and Webster, the following occurs: 
"No. 1132. When Sir Walter Raleigh returned from his 
discovery of Virginia, he brought with him a quantity of tobacco 
which he used to smoke privately in his study. But the first 
time of his doing it there, his man-servant bringing his usual 
tankard of ale and nutmeg, the poor fellow, seeing the smoke 
pouring forth in clouds from his mouth, threw all the contents 
of the tankard in his face, and then ran down stairs exclaiming 
that his master was on fire, and, before they could get to him, 
would be burnt to ashes." 

Fairholt gives two different versions of the story. 



TOBACCO SMOKING 453 

a pipeful and drank the fumes with much pleasure. 
But early in the seventeenth century persecution of 
smokers was begun by no less a person than the king, 
who denounced the habit; and his successor taxed 
the luxurious weed beyond all measure. He was 
followed by other potentates who were even more 
severe in the punishments inflicted upon such of their 
subjects as were detected in the act of using the sooth- 
ing herb. Anent these punishments and the ensuing 
reaction, Fairholt quotes the following from the New 
York Literary World of February, 1848: 
"Modern lovers of the oipe * seldom think of the 

"It is curious to note this well-Known anecdote of Raleigh 
reported by other persons (a fact not hitherto noted by historians 
of the herb). The famous jester, Dick Tarlton, who died in 
1588, is one of them, and in his Jests (1611) the tale is thus told: 
' How Tarlton took tobacco at the first coming of it : Tarlton as 
other gentlemen used, at the first coming up of tobacco, did it 
more for fashion sake than otherwise, and being in a roome, 
sat betweene two men overcome with wine, and they never 
seeing the like, wondered at it, and seeing the vapour come out 
of Tarlton's nose, cryed out, Fire! fire! and threw a cup of wine 
in Tarlton's face. Make no more stirre, quoth Tarlton, the fire 
is quenched: if the sheriff's come, it will turne a fine as the cus- 
tom is! And drinking that again, fie, says the other, what a 
stink it makes, I am almost poysoned. If it offend, quoth 
Tarlton, let's every one take a little of the smell, and so the savor 
will quickly go: but tobacco whiff es made them leave him to pay 
all." 

"Rich, in his Irish Hubbub (1619) gives another version of 
the story : ' I remember a pretty jest of tobacco which was this : 
A certain Welchman coming newly to London, and beholding 
one to take tobacco, never seeing the like before, and not know- 
ing the manner of it, but perceiving him vent smoke so fast, and 
supposing his inward parts to be on fire, cried out: O Jnesu, 
Jhesu, man, for the passion of God hold, for by God's splud ty 
snowt's on fire, and having a bowl of beer in his hand, threw it 
at the other's face to quench his smoking nose." 

* The fashion of cigar smoking did not become general until 
the beginning of the nineteenth century. 



454 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

worthies to whom they are indebted for its free enjoy- 
ment; and of those who delight in nasal aliment, how 
few ever call to mind the Diocletian persecutions their 
predecessors passed through in adhering to their 
faith in, and transmitting to their descendants the 
virtues of tobacco. Europe frowned, and Asia threat- 
ened, Pagan, Mohammedan, and Christian monarchs 
combined to crush them. The world was roused like 
a famishing lion from its lair, and gloated on them. 
James I of England, foaming with rage, sent forth 
his Counterblast; the half savage ruler of the Musco- 
vites followed suit; the King of Persia; Amurath IV 
of Turkey; the Emperor Jehan-Geer; and others, 
all joined the crusade. Arming themselves with 
scourges, halters, knives, and bearing gibbets on their 
banners, they denounced death to all found inhaling 
fumes of the plant through a tube, or caught with a 
pellet of it under their tongues. Such as used it as a 
sternutative were dealt with more gently, they were 
merely to be deprived of their organs of smelling — of 
nostrils and nose. To perfect the miseries of the piti- 
able delinquents, Urban VIII went in awful pomp to 
the Vatican where, tremulous with holy anger, he 
shook his garments to intimate that the blood of the 
offenders would be on their own heads, and then 
thundered excommunication on every soul who took 
the accursed thing, in any shape, into a church ! Was 
ever destruction of body and spirit threatened so 
unjustly? Mutilation for taking a pinch!* Loss of 
* It was in Russia that the noses of snuffers were cut off. 



TOBACCO SMOKING 455 

life for lighting a pipe! Exclusion from heaven for 
perhaps harmlessly reviving attention to a wearisome 
sermon in chapel or church! Merciful heavens! 
what comminations these to emanate from Christian 
kings and Christ's successor! Present and eternal 
death, tortures here, and endless tortures hereafter, 
for a whiff or quid of tobacco! Our sympathies are 
naturally excited for the sufferers. One wonders how 
they managed to preserve their integrity, or pass 
through the fires unscathed, or even escape annihila- 
tion. Yet most of them did escape, and they did 
more — they converted the Nebuchadnezzars who 
sought to consume them. Conscious of their inno- 
cence and of their rights, they mildly persisted in 
maintaining them. Of retiring habits, they avoided 
agitation and debate, declaring that the properties 
of the proscribed herb made such efforts uncongenial, 
while it strengthened them in passive resistance, 
composed their spirits, and rendered them, in a great 
measure, indifferent to abuse, and often insensible 
to pain. Hence they smoked, and chewed, and sneezed 
at home until their hottest enemies became their 
warmest friends, and greater sinners than themselves 
had ever been." 

The blood of these martyrs seems to have served the 
good purpose of perpetuating the fashion of smoking! 

The general opinion of James, forcibly expressed 
and powerfully condensed, says Fairholt, is given in 
A Collection of Witty Apothegms by him, as follows : 

"That tobacco was the lively image and pattern of 



456 DIKING AND ITS AMENITIES 

hell; for that it had, by allusion, in it all the parts 
and vices of the world whereby hell may be gained; 
to wit: First, it was a smoke; so are the vanities of 
this world. Secondly, it delighteth them who take it; 
so do the pleasures of the world delight the men of the 
world. Thirdly, it maketh men drunken, and light in 
the head; so do the vanities of the world, men are 
drunken therewith. Fourthly, he that taketh tobacco 
saith he cannot leave it, it doth bewitch him; even so 
the pleasures of the world make men loath to leave 
them: and further, besides all this, it is like hell in 
the very substance of it, for it is a stinking loathsome 
thing; and so is hell. And further, his majesty pro- 
fessed that, were he to invite the devil to dinner, he 
should have three dishes : 1. A pig; 2. A pole of ling 
and mustard; and 3. A pipe of tobacco for digesture." 
The modern tobacco decriers reason very much after 
the manner of the English King. 

Louis XIV was not a lover of tobacco, but smoking 
• and snuffing were practised in France during his reign. 
It is related that the daughters of the Grand Monarque 
were once detected in the act of smoking pipes of 
tobacco which they had obtained from officers of the 
Swiss guard. 

When tobacco was first made known in Europe it 
was employed largely as a medicinal agent supposed 
to cure all human ails, hence its names herba panacea, 
panacea of the Indies. It was administered by inhala- 
tion, and given in pills and potions, or added to un- 
guents. Spenser in his Faerie Queene lauds its virtues 



TOBACCO SMOKING 457 

and speaks of it as " divine tobacco." As sana sancta 
Indorum it was ordered for asthma and other com- 
plaints by physicians in the sixteenth century. 

Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, says: "To- 
bacco, divine rare, superexcellent tobacco, which goes 
far beyond all other panaceas, potable gold, and phil- 
osophers' stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases. 
A good vomit, I confess, a virtuous herb; if it be well 
qualified, opportunely taken, and medicinally used, 
but, as it is commonly abused by most men, which 
take it as tinkers do ale, 'tis a plague, a mischief, a 
violent purger of goods, lands,* health; hellish, 
devilish, and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow 
of body and soul." Burton, though a righteous man, 
was not a good smoker. 

There is no satisfactory evidence that the Indians 
used tobacco medicinally. Smoking, with many of 
the tribes, appears to have begun as a religious rite, 
but in time it became a luxury. The Cuban Indians, 
as Columbus reports, smoked their tobacco in the 
form of scrolls. The pipe does not seem to have been 
known to them whilst the Mexicans were pipe 
smokers. In the north the pipe of tobacco served as 
a timepiece by which the perpetual Indian smoker 
measured the hours with sufficient accuracy for his 
purposes. It took him four, six, or ten pipes to do 
some things, and eight twelve, or sixteen pipes to 
walk to certain places. The early white settlers in 

* The price of tobacco, in Burton's time, was not less than six 
shillings per ounce. 



458 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

"the Manhattoes" soon learned from those children 
of the forest this excellent method of time reckoning, 
which rendered clocks unnecessary. The pipe, in 
every New Amsterdam household, had then usurped 
the place of even the sand-glass. An Amsterdamer 
who did not smoke had no standing in society and 
was not trusted. The habit of smoking made up for 
all obliquities. This has often been illustrated by 
the following ancient chestnut, the patent right for 
whose relation has been secured by the Castanean 
Fraternity. 

Among the inhabitants of New Amsterdam, when 
its northern boundary was at what is now called Wall 
Street, was one Hans Von Beckman who, though 
tolerated for his nicotinic virtue, was not dearly 
beloved by his fellow townsmen. Hans' disposition 
was not remarkable for suavity, the lack of which 
was due partly to inheritance, partly to a disappoint- 
ment in his early amatory relations which led him to 
adopt single blessedness, and partly to over-indulgence 
in schnapps. He had become such a sour misogamist 
that the women avoided him. He hated children and 
was feared by them. Street boys were in constant 
dread of his cudgel. The pigs ran from him squealing. 
The dogs growled and showed their teeth at a safe 
distance from his stick and scampered away barking. 
His favorite haunt was the town pot-house, where he 
was abundantly supplied with "Hollands" and 
tobacco. Hans, sustained by the beneficent weed, 
lived to be an old man and went the way of all flesh 



TOBACCO SMOKING 459 

with his pipe in his mouth. The pipe, a pound of 
tobacco, and a bottle of gin being buried with him. 
The Amsterdamers had always made it a religious 
duty to see their departed fellow citizens "put away" 
with due solemnity; the head men at the funerals 
throwing, each in turn, a handful of earth on the coffin 
and pronouncing a brief eulogy. On this particular 
occasion, however, not a word, for some time, was 
spoken in praise of the deceased. The stolid silent 
company, almost motionless, incessantly puffed great 
clouds of smoke. This inaction became tedious; the 
air was chilled, the sun going down. Each man 
asked his neighbor to say something, but in vain, 
until finally the oldest crony of the defunct bachelor 
was prevailed upon. Taking the pipe out of his 
mouth, he puffed away the residuary smoke, picked up 
a fist-full of dust, which he cast upon the bier, and 
said: "Hans he vas a goot schmoker any how," 
whereupon the neighbors retired to the tavern. 

This tale is told for the special benefit of our "awful 
example" whose lack of the good habit of smoking we 
all deplore. How happy he would be if at one of our 
gay banquets he were to take a mouthful of sparkling 
wine and a whiff of the sweet nicotian weed! 

Much has been said by anti-tobacco orators and 
writers, about the terrible poison contained in the 
balmy herb, and innumerable tracts and volumes have 
appeared decrying its use, but the number of smokers 
is still increasing if we may judge by the many millions 
of tons of the plant raised in this world. The immense 



460 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

consumption of this harmless weed is surely a great 
blessing to millions of families to which the industry 
of its cultivation, preparation, and exploitation gives 
bread, raiment, and shelter. 

But what of the poison of tobacco? This grass is 
not eaten by man as is the white potato whose active 
principle, solanin, is a virulent poison, yet whole 
nations have been nourished by the potato without 
being solanised. It will be seen by the following 
facts and figures, obtained from a trustworthy source, 
that the proportion of the active principle of tobacco 
known as nicotin is not sufficient to harm even the 
inveterate smoker, chewer, or snuffer: 

"The nicotin contained in tobacco varies from one 
and a half to seven per centum. It varies, in the 
same year, in the same crop. The American contain 
less nicotin than the foreign tobaccos. Havana to- 
bacco contains one and a half, rarely two per centum. 
Kentucky tobacco two per centum, and Virginia 
tobacco sometimes as much as six per centum. 
Tobacco smoke contains a trace of nicotin combined 
with either citric or mafic acid. The oil of tobacco is 
often confounded with nicotin which is to tobacco 
what solanin is to the potato." 

The subjoined excerpts may be consolatory to 
smokers, insomuch as the dreaded nicotin is said to 
be only one of three active principles of the weed and 
not the worst. 



TOBACCO SMOKING 461 

"the three poisons of tobacco. 

The most dangerous principle of tobacco is not nicotin, as is 
generally supposed, but pyridin and collidin. Nicotin is the 
product of the cigar; pyridin which is three or four times more 
poisonous comes out of the pipe. It would be well, both for the 
devotees of tobacco and their neighbors, if they took care always 
to have the smoke filtered through cotton, wool or other absorbent 
material before it is allowed to pass the "barrier of the teeth." 
Smokers might also take a lesson from the unspeakable Turk, 
who never smokes a cigarette to the end, but usually throws it 
away when a little more than half is finished. If these precau- 
tions were more generally observed, we should hear much less 
of the evil effects of smoking on the nerves of the heart, and on 
the tongue itself. — Charlotte Medical Journal." * 

"comfort for smokers. 

The British Medical Journal, July 12, 1890, says that smokers 
will be pleased to learn that Dr. Gautrelet, of Vichy, claims to 
have discovered a method of rendering tobacco harmless to 
mouth, heart, and nerve without detriment to its aroma. Ac- 
cording to him, a piece of cotton wool steeped in a solution 

* These statements do not agree with those made by toxi- 
cologists according to whom nicotin is the most poisonous prin- 
ciple of tobacco. The larger portion of this nicotin is no doubt 
burned up during the act of smoking, and the tar-like products 
containing pyridin and collidin are erroneously called nicotin. 

The following newspaper excerpt has some bearing on the 
subject : 

" It is popularly supposed that a pipe is stronger than a cigar. 
Such, however, is by no means always the fact. Most pipe to- 
baccos are stronger than cigar tobaccos, but sometimes, as in the 
case of the Maryland leaf grown for export, they are milder. 
Another notion widely held is that a tobacco is strong in propor- 
tion to the amount of nicotine it contains. But the truth is 
that some very strong tobaccos are comparatively poor in nico- 
tine, their strength consisting in an excessive percentage of 
certain oils. As for cigarettes, the tobacco used in their manu- 
facture is usually of a very mild kind, so that they are much less 
harmful and less irritating to the nerves than cigars so long as 
they are merely smoked and not inhaled. In five cigarettes 
there is exactly as much tobacco as in one ordinary cigar. 



462 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

(5 to 10 per cent.) of pyrogallic acid inserted in the pipe or 
cigar holder will neutralize any possible ill effects of the nicotin. 
In this way not only may the generally admitted evils of smoking 
be prevented, but cirrhosis of the liver, which in Dr. Gautrelet's 
experience is sometimes caused by tobacco, and such lighter 
penalties of over-indulgence as headache and furring of the 
tongue may be avoided. Citric acid, which was recommended 
by Vigier for the same puprose, has the serious disadvantage 
of spoiling the taste of the tobacco." 

Among the many detractors of the delightful habit 
of smoking was a Mr. Trask, the author of several 
works against tobacco, who at the close of a public 
lecture on his favorite subject, asked if any member 
of the audience wished to propound questions. There 
was soon a general cry for the Reverend Daniel Waldo, 
Chaplain of the Senate. Mr, Waldo then rose and 
said — rolling a quid of tobacco in his mouth — 
Brother Trask has conclusively shown that tobacco is 
a poison; now, from the age of eighteen, I can remem- 
ber no waking hour in which I had not some of this 
tobacco in my mouth; smoking much of the time, 
chewing when not smoking. I am now ninety-two 
years of age, sound in wind and limb, and have never 
had a day's sickness. I think therefore that while you 
will agree with Brother Trask that tobacco is a poison, 
you will agree with me that it is a very slow poison. 

The bibliography of tobacco smoking and of nico- 
tian poetry is so copious that it has no place here. 
Of the many poetical effusions quoted by Fairholt. 
only one, translated from the German of Friedrich 
Marc, is here reproduced. 



TOBACCO SMOKING 463 



"to my cigar. 



The warmth of thy glow, 

Well lighted cigar, 
Makes happy thoughts flow, 

And drives sorrow afar. 

The stronger the wind blows, 

The brighter thou burnest! 
The dreariest of life's woes, 

Less gloomy thou turnest. 

As I feel on my lip 

Thy unselfish kiss; 
Like the flame-colour'd tip, 

All is rosy-hued bliss. 

No longer does sorrow 

Lay weight on my heart; 
And all fears of the morrow 

In joy dreams depart. 

Sweet cheerer of sadness! 

Life's own happy star! 
I greet thee with gladness, 

My friendly cigar!" 

Wine, coffee, and tobacco, says Capneus in rhap- 
sodic mood, are the three most potent intellectual 
feeders of poets, historians, and philosophers. Their 
disprizal has generally come from men who have used 
them to great excess, from the idiosyncratic, and 
from those who have never tasted the one, sipped 
the other, or smoked the third! The recognition of 
the characters and properties of tobacco belongs to 
botanists and chemists, but its esthetic qualities are 
fairly judged only by dainty smokers, and its high 
praise has been sung solely by those modern bards 



464 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

who knew how to enjoy its odorous fumes, its sweet 
savor, and its wondrous action upon the cogitative 
center! It is pitifully unfortunate that the ancients 
should not have known of the invaluable plant and 
that this misfortune was due to their unpardonable 
neglect to discover the western after conquering the 
eastern hemisphere — a discovery which in those 
early times would probably have monstrated the 
earth's rotundity and many other marvels! The 
Greek epics though composed under the invigoration 
of Chian and Pramnian wines to which they owe their 
splendor, are barely tolerated by certain censorious 
pseudo-hellenists; but could the genial designers of 
such artistic works have had a bountiful supply of 
pure Havanas and smoked them without stint, how 
immensely grander would be these literary monu- 
ments, and how they would baffle captious critics! 
Under the beneficent effects of the mind kindling 
weed, what an abundance of sublime language Herod- 
otus would have infused in his prosaic histories! 
With the help of tobacco Aristotle would undoubtedly 
have enlightened the heathen world with the theory 
of evolution, with paleontology, and with a more 
comprehensive history of the animal kingdom! 
What solid comfort the forbearing Epictetus would 
have had with a box of lucifer matches to light his 
earthen lamp, and to kindle an occasional pipeful of 
mild lulling Maryland or bland Latakia! The sour- 
ness of Crates would certainly have been mitigated 
by inhalation of the fumes, or by frequent mastication 



TOBACCO SMOKING 465 

of the enticing "honey-dew-plug!" How greatly the 
last hours of the virtuous Socrates would have been 
soothed by a few whiffs from the genial pipe!* What 
vast anti-microbic clouds t would have risen from 
the burning of the fragrant leaf to disinfect the foul 
tub of Diogenes! Under the incitement of nicotian 
vapor, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, would have so tuned their 
melodious harps as to render them immeasurably 
more prolific of those sweet accords which will con- 
tinue to. charm the senses of the cultured of this and 
many future generations, and Lucretius would have 
spared his own life that he might long be regaled with 
the savory clouds from the ignited nepenthic herb 
and enjoy the ensuing delightful ebriety! How 
much more readable Plutarch's biographies would be, 
could he have written them under the inspiration of 
the regal weed! The Italian poets of middle ages 
must have longed for some more powerful brain 
stimulant than their light wines, but alas did not even 
suspect that it was to be found in the Santa Croce 
herb! Chaucer, ever fond of the grape's exhilarating 
juice, had none of the luscious Virginia leaves with 
whose honeyed vapor it might be flavored! If 
Shakspeare had only followed the good example of 
Raleigh % who tempered his ale with a drink of the 

♦Aubrey speaking of the last hours of Sir Walter Raleigh, 
says: " He took a pipe of tobacco a little before he went to the 
scaffolde, which some female persons were scandalised at; but 
I think 'twas well and properly donne to settle his spirits." 

f Tobacco smoke is said to retard the proliferation of bacteria. 

J In a fictitious letter of Raleigh to Shakspeare, the following 
occurs: "I send a package of a new herb from the Chesapeake, 



466 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

new world's vaporous nectar,* with what true poetical 
fervor he would have chaunted the joys of smoking 
after sack, and what charming sonnets he would have 
composed in praise of the "panacea of the Indies!" 
Had Ben Jonson early learned to smoke he would 
have loved sweet William at first sight! Those 
drinkers of mild wines, Cervantes, Calderon, Corneille, 
Moliere,f Boileau, Racine, were great despite the 
fact that they made no habitual use of the sweet 
scented fumes of the balmy American grass; but who 
can tell how much loftier would have been the pro- 
ductions of such masters had their genius been quick- 
ened by worship at the shrine of the sacred plant! 
La Bruyere would undoubtedly have added much to 
the piquancy of description in his "Caractkres" had 
he been addicted to the seraphic virtue of tobacco 
smoking! How exquisite would have been Delille's 
charming poem in praise of coffee had his demie-tasse 
always been followed by a fragrant cigar! Think of 

called by the natives tobacco. Make it not into a tea, as did 
one of my kinsmen, but kindle and smoke it in a little tube the 
messenger will bestow. Be not deterred if thy gorge at first 
rises against it, for, when thou art wonted, it is as a balm for all 
sorrows and griefs, and as a dream of Paradise." F. H. Head, 
1887. 

* In the seventeenth century tobacco smoking was called 
tobacco drinking, and smokers tobacco drinkers. 

f The use of snuff had already become fashionable in Moliere's 
time, but he does not appear to have been a smoker. See Le 
Festin de Pierre, 1,1. 

Sgadarelle Loquitur: " Quoi que puisse dire Aristote, et toute 
la philosophic, il n'est rien d'6gal au tabac; c'est la passion des 
honetes gens, et qui vit sans tabac, n'est pas digne de vivre. 
Non seulement il r£jouit, et purge les cerveaux humains, mais 
encore il instruit les ames a la vertu, et Ton apprend avec lui 
a devenir honnete homme." 



TOBACCO SMOKING 467 

what Sir Isaac Newton accomplished under nicotian 
stimulation! Was not the sweet pipe of the learned 
Doctor Parr ever and anon filled and refilled with the 
finest grades of "mundungus" which he perpetually 
smoked? Byron's occasional well flavored cigar, in 
some measure, counteracted the ill effects of gin and 
sometimes made him almost amiable! But the case 
of that inveterate toper, Charles Lamb, was hopeless 
the moment he basely and ungratefully bade "Fare- 
well to Tobacco!" Had this trifler with words con- 
tinued to smoke, he would probably have abjured 
gin-and-water (the real cause of his headaches) and 
ceased making bad puns! Walter Scott was a good 
and grand old smoker; hence the sublimity of his 
prose and the majesty of his verse ! " Sartor Resartus" 
was composed amid dense clouds from the favorite 
Carlylean pipe, which accounteth for the quaint 
cleverness of the work! The charming productions 
of Bulwer, Thackeray, Tennyson, were surely inspired 
by fumes of the sweet herb ! Longfellow, Holmes, and 
many other celebrities in American literature owe the 
superexcellence of their admirable writings principally 
to tobacco! Were not, and are not still, great num- 
bers of our distinguished men of science, of our emi- 
nent members of the clergy, of the medical profession, 
and of the bar and bench, of our illustrious statesmen, 
and of opera singers of highest artistic celebrity, true 
devotees of tabaccic nebulisation? And for the knowl- 
edge and practice of this cardinal virtue we owe a 
debt of everlasting gratitude to the American abor- 



468 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

igines of whom Catlin says: "There is no custom 
more uniformly in constant use amongst the poor 
Indians than that of smoking, nor any more highly 
valued. His pipe is his constant companion through 
life — his messenger of peace; he pledges his friends 
through its stem and its bowl, and when its care 
drowning fumes cease to flow, it takes a place with 
him in his solitary grave with his tomahawk and 
war-club; companions in his long fancied and beauti- 
ful hunting grounds!" 

Such, and doubtless many more, better expressed, 
would have been the concluding exclamations of the 
renowned Doctor Bushwhacker, had he written, as 
he would have done so admirably, an exhaustive 
treatise on the history, cultivation, exportation, im- 
portation, and uses of this holy herb that so potently 
stimulates thought, so strongly inspires exalted idea- 
tion, so warmly excites the tender emotions of the 
lover, so brilliantly illumines the poet's mind, so 
thoroughly awakens the historian's memory, so viv- 
idly quickens the novelist's imagination, so greatly 
strengthens and beautifies the moralist's maxims, so 
mildly soothes the dejected spirits of the solitary, so 
sweetly balms the sorrowful, and so constantly fosters 
dreams of a happy future! 

Fairholt, in his excellent history of tobacco, says: 
" It has been and is constantly alleged, that smoking 
leads to drinking. It certainly never induced our 
Saxon ancestors to drink, and they were notorious 
drunkards. The English, as a nation, were hard 



TOBACCO SMOKING 469 

drinkers before the fumes of tobacco crossed their 
wine and beer cups. They are probably less given 
to drink at the present day than at any period of 
their history; and while tobacco smoking is on the 
increase. The Turks and the French smoke much, 
and both are essentially sober nations." 

"But let us come to individuals of our own 
country, to those whom we have had opportunities 
of knowing, and give the result of our own practical 
observation. As a rule, we can pronounce that all 
great smokers are temperate men, and most of them 
extremely so, very many being water-drinkers, and 
particularly when smoking, as the use of wine and 
liquors destroys the palate for the appreciation of 
fine tobaccos. On the other hand, very many who do 
not smoke and who are the most vociferous in con- 
demning smoking, are habitual and daily drinkers of 
wine, beer, and spirits. Few drunkards smoke, at 
least, to any extent. If they smoke at all, it will be 
found that the love of drinking led to the use of 
tobacco ; and not, as is often asserted, that they were 
induced to drink from smoking. Many may think 
these remarks too bold and trenchant but let our 
readers look carefully around them, in their respect- 
ive circles, and they will not fail to find their 
experience confirm our own. They may find some 
questionable exceptions to the rule; they may find, 
here and there, a sot who drinks and smokes but 
take away from him his tobacco, and he will be 
a sot still." . . . 



470 DINING AND ITS AMENITIES 

"Many great smokers we have found to be men of 
particularly energetic minds, and capable of doing 
much mental and physical work; and they declare 
that smoking, with water and coffee, or without 
either, enables them to sustain an extra exertion of 
mind and body, when the effect of wine, beer, and 
spirits would weaken and wholly incapacitate them." 



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